Storiesonline.net ------- Muleskinner Blues by Joe J Copyright© 2008 by Joe J ------- Description: Historical fiction and time travel with a twist. Jeremiah Brock was a violin playing muleskinner, a veteran of the War Between the States and a man who had trouble staying in one place - or one time. Codes: MF FF TimeTr hist harem rom ------- ------- Prologue The two women looked at me in distaste when I introduced myself to them as we stood on the train platform. I didn't shy away from their obvious contempt. I get a lot of that in my line of work. It comes with the territory I guess. See, I'm a muleskinner, and about the best there is I reckon. I jerk a twelve-mule hitch pulling tandem wagons the Studebaker brothers up in Ohio custom made for me. Think what you want about my mules and me, but when I'm riding that lead mule holding the jerk line, your freight couldn't be in better hands. That's what I was trying to explain to those two prissy women there on the train platform. It didn't seem as if they were buying what I was selling though; put off by my youthful looks mostly I'd wager. Finally I had enough with arguing and threw up my hands in mock surrender. "If you ladies decide you want me to haul your freight come see me. I'll be in either the livery stable or the saloon. Leastwise I'll know that wherever that I am, either my mules or the dance hall floosies have enough sense to listen to me." Now I'm not a hard man to get along with. Heck, I am as easy going as they come. I suspect that's why I am such a good skinner, because a man with a bad nature can't get a mule to do diddlie-squat. Mules are smarter than a horse ever thought of being. They are smart enough that they have to be led, not pushed. So I tipped my hat to the tight-jawed priggish women and ambled over to the Broken Spoke Saloon. My mouth was suddenly watering for a shot of tequila and my hands itching for a grab at Miss Corrina's ample haunches. I smiled at the thought of Corrina as she was at least as big as I was and she thought the sun rose and set on my muley butt. My name is Jeremiah Ezra Brock but I go by Jeb. Other muleskinners and the freight captains call me Georgia Jeb. Amongst muleskinners nicknames like mine are the handle upon which your reputation is hung. I am twenty-five years old and I've led what some might call a charmed life in that I have eluded the scythe of the Grim Reaper on more occasions than I care to remember. Now unlike most teamsters I'm not a boastful man but I can tell you that I've lived a life of adventure few men twice my age can match... ------- Chapter 1 What life story I have worth telling started in 1860-61 when the Yankees forced the southern states, one by one, to secede from the Union and then started the War of Northern Aggression. I was a fifteen-year-old country boy; a big, shy, Georgia plowboy with a wanderlust that made it hard for me to stay home on the farm. I had stayed though, because my ma and pa were older and I was all they had. We weren't rich plantation owners; instead we were proud independent farmers scratching out a fair living from the red Georgia clay. We grew corn and raised hogs mostly but pa also made some locally famous corn squeezin' liquor. Ma frowned on the liquor but didn't forbid it as long as pa only sold it. She didn't tolerate drinking in our home. Mama didn't allow unmannered conduct of any kind for that matter. She managed through love and a will of iron to keep civility in our house. My ma was a gentile and refined woman and my pa was a big gentle man. I was born when my ma was near forty-three years of age. Both my parents said I was a welcomed miracle. I had two older half brothers, Jacob and Joshua; both had married, and were living in houses they built within a quarter mile of my parents' home. My father gave each of my brothers a third of his property to start their own places. Pa's original land grant was for a four hundred and fifty acre tract anchored on the Chattahoochee River near Bartlett's Ferry. Jacob was twelve years older than me and Josh was ten years older. Both pa's first wife and ma's first husband had died during the cholera epidemic of 1845. Ma had an adopted daughter named Rachael, who was six years older than me. Rachael was married to a brakeman on the Georgia Southern Railroad. Rachael and her husband lived over in Cataula, about ten miles away. They lived in Cataula because the railroad went through there and Rachael's husband could jump on and off the train when it slowed down to cross the Mulberry Creek Bridge. Ma had been a schoolteacher once, so my brothers, Rachael and I received a good education at home. In the spring of 1861, after helping my pa with spring planting, I snuck away from home to join General Lee's Army. I was spurred to action when the treacherous Federals attacked Virginia to impose their tyranny on the freedom loving people of the Confederacy. It was the first time I'd ever disobeyed my parents on such a grand scale. I couldn't really put into words my feelings about leaving home that early spring morning. On one hand my heart was heavy with the thought of hurting my parents. On the other, my brain was convinced I was doing the right thing. I decided on joining Lee's Army in Virginia based on a story I'd read about him in the Atlanta Constitution newspaper. Lee was portrayed as a man of honor and the best general in the service of the Confederacy. I had very strong and romantic notions about honor, so I knew immediately that I wanted to serve under someone of his character. Another reason that I went all the way to Virginia was because of my age. I wasn't old enough to enlist and I was scared everyone in Georgia probably knew that. Since the war I've had Yankees go on and on at me about how the war was fought against the evil of slavery, and I've had them ask me how I could fight for a cause like that. Well I'm here to tell you that I was no advocate of owning slaves. My family didn't have any and no one we knew did either. I fought in the war because the Unionists attacked us and I was defending my country, same as it was during the Revolutionary War I suspect. I do know this: I will go to my grave believing the war was just an excuse for greedy Yankee carpetbaggers to take what was ours. I see the same thing out here in the west with the Red Indians. The same people who were a hollering about the Black Man treat the Red Man worse than any slave. So it goes I guess, and I figure that's why I like mules better than most men. When I left the farm I was riding Zeke, one of our mules, and I was carrying the old Kentucky rifle my pappy gave me for my last birthday. Zeke was four years old, smart as a whip and he was big as mules go. I had pretty much raised him from a foal. We were a team, Zeke and I; I took care of him and he took care of me. I always had a way with the mules we kept on our farm. I was able to get them to do things that surprised and delighted my father and brothers. I really never saw what all the fuss was about because all I did was show the mules what I wanted and let them figure out how to do it. I ambled Zeke up the road that ran beside the Chattahoochee River to where the river turned northeast towards Atlanta. The name of the bend in the river was West Point because it was the western most flow of the big river. From West Point the river slowly meandered downstream a little east of due south. Making the inland turn upstream at West Point took me out of Harris County not to return for four long years. I kept the pace down to about twenty-five miles a day because we had a long trip ahead of us and I wasn't going to wear out Zeke before we arrived in Virginia. I walked Zeke about as much as I rode him. I was a big man even then at six foot - one inch and two hundred pounds, and I had about fifty pounds packed behind Zeke's saddle. It didn't bother me to walk and it was only fair to Zeke, no matter how big and hard working he was. It took me four days at that pace to reach Atlanta, the first big city I'd ever seen. I was the typical bumpkin, gawking at the sights. Atlanta was like a kicked over anthill because of the war. Soldiers were everywhere, bustling about as the Georgia Capital converted to a war footing. I politely turned down an invitation to join the 3rd Georgia Volunteer Regiment while I was passing through the city. With the bravado of the young and foolish I said, "I reckon General Lee has a bigger need for a man like me than the Georgia Light Infantry." From Atlanta I continued northeast traveling to Spartanburg, South Carolina before taking the coastal post road north through North Carolina and on up toward Richmond, Virginia. Zeke and I traveled alone because it was easier to forage for food and I was more welcomed at farms along the way. It was easier for folks to offer hospitality to a lone man than it was to feed a group. I was treated well at every farm at which I stopped. People looked kindly on the fact that I was off to join in the war. No one questioned my assertion that I just turned eighteen because of my size and the mature way in which I spoke. My mother's efforts to make sure my brothers and I were gentlemen, regardless of our circumstances, paid off for me. I did find a traveling companion just after I crossed the Virginia state line near Emporia, though, whether I wanted one or not. I was walking beside Zeke just after crossing a small stream when I ran up on a man camped under a swamp maple tree cooking a rabbit over a small fire. I nodded hello and started to walk on by. "Hold on a minute boy. Come share lunch with me. Any man riding a mule is my kind of people," he said, with a sweep of his arm. I looked in the direction he was gesturing in and saw nine of the finest looking mules I'd ever seen. I walked Zeke over and ground tied him with the other mules then introduced myself to my host. I looked him over as we shook hands. He was a medium sized, grizzled fellow with long black hair tied behind his head by a piece of rawhide. He also had a thick bushy beard. His face above the beard was tanned ruddy by the sun and wind; his eyes were brown and crinkled at the corners. I guessed he was a few years older than my brother Jacob, early thirties, maybe. "Pleased to meet you Jeb. My name's Colbert, J.C. Colbert; my family was so poor they couldn't afford to give me a real name, so I got initials instead. I am a muleteer and I hail from Texas. I'm heading to Richmond so I can show General Lee how to whomp some Yankees." And that's how I met the self-proclaimed greatest muleskinner, lover, fighter, gambler and dancer who ever lived. Mr. Colbert was also never without a scheme. Over rabbit and spicy pinto beans, JC made me a part of his latest. "Jeb, I'm glad a fellow mule man came along today because I need your help. See, I'm a sergeant in the Texas Militia with the duty of becoming a teamster for General Lee. I served with Lee in the 2nd Cavalry on the Texas frontier and he's the finest man that ever climbed on a horse. Anyway, the problem I have is I need a corporal to help me with the stock, plus with your mule we have the number for needing both a sergeant and a corporal. See, in Texas a sergeant tends six mules and a corporal tends four, while helping the sergeant. Jeb, I want you to be that corporal." Of course he was tipping the outhouse with me, but as young and impressionable as I was I immediately said yes. I had not even reported to General Lee yet and I was already a corporal. I soon enough learned that 'helping out the sergeant' meant I took care of all the mules while he chased women and gambled. JC smiled at my eager acceptance and went over to a pack that was sitting on the ground by one of his mules. Out of the pack he pulled a set of corporal stripes and handed them to me. "By the power vested in me by the great state of Texas I frock you Muleteer Corporal Jeremiah Brock, 71st Teamster Company, Texas Militia," he solemnly intoned. It wasn't until after the second battle of Bull Run that I found out JC had been shining me. Of course by then he'd done the same thing so successfully to the general staff of the Army of Northern Virginia that there actually was a Teamster Company and Captain Colbert was its commanding officer. Old JC parlayed a string of mules he claimed he bought (which I began to very much doubt) in Missouri, his service under Lee in Texas and a hayseed Georgia plowboy into his own command. Not only that, he also wrangled it so that we were the company responsible for moving General Lee's headquarters whenever it relocated. JC shared his good fortune by having me appointed the company lieutenant. I received the education of a lifetime at the knee of the biggest cow pie tosser in the country. Meeting JC was the most fortuitous thing to happen to me during the war. Although we were not front line troops, JC and I were involved in some fierce battles as we were often thrown into the line because of the sadly depleted state of the Confederate Army. As in most things, JC was a good soldier when it was necessary or suited his purpose. His advice and experience fighting Indians saved my bacon more than once. In addition, JC took me under his wing as if he were my father or older brother. We were in the lines at Fredericksburg and Bull Run where we were victorious as well as at Antietam and Gettysburg when the Army of Northern Virginia suffered horrific defeats. We watched as many of our comrades and friends were felled by Minié balls and even more died from disease. Through it all we did our jobs and waited for the war to end. We muleteers became a close-knit group during our travails together. It was heart warming to have such men for friends and heart wrenching to see so many of them succumb to shot, shell and sickness. Despite everything, we had it much better than the normal troops of the line because of our position in support of the general staff and because of JC's foraging ability. In the world of JC Colbert, food and women were only slightly less important than oxygen. JC had no trouble finding either, usually at the same place. For instance, we had been in Richmond for only two days before he found us a place to stay with the wife and daughter of a naval officer who was at sea. The women were no raving beauties but Sergeant Colbert told me, "Jeb, my boy, all women are beautiful in some way, it up to you to find out what way that is." I was skeptical about his proclamation until the mother took me upstairs and dispensed with my virginity four times later that night. When she was standing at the stove the next morning frying me some ham and eggs my newly commissioned and thoroughly tired little Johnny Reb reckoned that she was the most beautiful woman in the world. The night before, while Constance was riding me like the last train to the Promised Land, JC was doing the same service for her eighteen-year-old daughter, Prudence. Anyone walking by the Spooner house that night must have though a group of Alpine yodelers were strangling cats in the upstairs bedrooms. ------- Richmond was the new capital of the Confederacy and the headquarters of the Confederate Army Staff. General Lee was not in the field at this point in the war. Instead, General Joseph E. Johnston commanded the Army of Northern Virginia and Lee was the military advisor to Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States of America. JC presented himself to the Adjutant of Lee's staff, convinced the man of his bona fides and lobbied for inclusion into the headquarters. Instead, General Lee, who always put the soldier's in the field welfare first, had us shipped up to Manassas to join General Johnston. Lee himself came out to the alley behind the War Department building and gave JC his orders. "I remember you from Texas, Sergeant Colbert," General Lee said dryly. "So I know a man of your unique abilities would be wasted here in the Capital. It is better for all concerned that I send you forward where we can use your talents and avoid your vices. If I'm posted to the field, I will request you be assigned to my headquarters." I stayed as hidden behind the mules as I could as I watch the exchange between JC and Marse Robert. So I saw the wink that the General shot JC and the snappy salute he received from JC in return. I guess the most lasting memory of my first sight of Robert E. Lee, though, was his age and bearing. Lee appeared to be even older than my father, yet he carried himself with a dignity and purpose that immediately marked him as a man you had to respect. During the war I never saw General Lee do the slightest thing that changed my initial opinion of him. General Lee was also the only officer that JC never schemed against or tricked. After a tearful farewell from the Spooner women, JC and I left Richmond a couple of days later pulling two new wagons loaded with supplies for General Johnston's field headquarters. We had four mules harnessed to each wagon and a fifth mule tied to the back of the wagon bed. JC took charge of four other wagons along our route and still made the run to Manassas in record time. That feat made JC the darling of Colonel Bowden, the Commandant of the General Johnston's Headquarters, a position JC quickly exploited. Colonel Bowden and the rest of General Johnston's inexperienced staff were putty in old JC's double dealing hands. Within a week he was promoted to First Sergeant and put in charge of all the headquarters wagons, livestock and teamsters. When the rest of the nonexistent 71st Texas Militia Teamster Company failed to materialize after two months, Colonel Bowden reconstituted the headquarters transport as the Headquarters Transportation and Trains Company and JC was made its commanding officer. Captain Colbert had sixty mules, ten horses, twenty wagons, twelve oxen, twenty-five teamsters, forty roustabouts and one newly minted lieutenant (me). Although I looked eighteen and was well spoken, I didn't want a commission and argued vehemently against it. However, JC said I was his right-hand man, so he made the promotion stick. We were disappointed not being assigned to General Lee but JC said that the situation was temporary. "Retrograde Joe won't last," JC predicted. "He is too deliberate and that makes him appear timid. Old Jeff (President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis) wants aggressive generals punishing the Yankees every time they have the nerve to cross the border." It took until June of 1862 for JC's prediction to come true and it happened because Johnston was wounded during the Peninsula Campaign. On August 29, 1862 during the Second battle of Bull Run, my brother Jacob was killed. Jacob and Joshua were both members of Company H, The Harris County Bartows, Benning's 17th Georgia Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Colonel Henry L. Benning was from Columbus, Georgia, the closest city to our farm in Harris County. Benning raised the Regiment from men in Harris, Muscogee, Chattahoochee and a few other surrounding counties. Benning's Regiment was part of the right wing of the Army of Northern Virginia. In the Army of Northern Virginia's order of battle, the 17th Georgia was part of Toombs' Brigade that was in turn part of General Jones' and later General Hood's Division. The division was one of three in General Longstreet's First Corps throughout the war. General Lee and I shared our first words two days after Jacob was killed. I was often around the headquarters on business but I kept my distance from what I considered the real officers. General Lee came up to me as I was supervising the striking of the headquarters tents. He was astride Traveler, his warhorse, ready to move out when he spotted me. He reined Traveler in and rode over to where I was working. I called my men to attention and saluted him. General Lee returned my salute, leaned down in his saddle and put his hand on my shoulder. "I'll pray for your brother Lieutenant Brock. His loss saddens me, as does the death of any good soldier." I gulped and nodded; he squeezed my shoulder once and rode off. To this day I don't know how he knew my name or how he knew Jacob was my brother. I do know that he insisted on reviewing the casualty list every day. I also know that he took every death personally and did pray for those that were killed and wounded. Because of the difference in the ages of my brothers and me, they were more uncles to me than anything else. Despite that, Jacob's death was a staggering blow to me and made the carnage of war much more personal. I mourned for Jacob and I fretted for his wife and children. I also worried about how my parents were handling the death of their beloved eldest son. I had written home as soon as I had a unit address to give my parents and my mother had written me back with information about my brothers. My mother's worry for all of us was palpable in her letters. She was distraught that I had run away to enlist but soothed somewhat that I was not in a front line unit. I will be forever thankful that I had a chance to visit with my brothers before Jacob was killed. As the three of us sat around in front of their tent, my brothers treated me as a man and their equal for the first time. They gave me a fit about being an officer but I could tell they were secretly proud of the fact. I asked them if I could lobby for them to be transferred into the teamster company but they both refused to consider it. "This is our unit, Jeremiah. We belong here fighting beside our friends and neighbors," Jacob said. "Then I belong here too, ' I said. My brothers vehemently asserted that I did not. "Try it and we will tell everyone how old you actually are Lieutenant. We ought to anyway, come to think of it," Joshua threatened. As I rode Zeke back to the headquarters encampment I felt closer to my brothers than ever before because for once we had something in common to share. It was a stain on the soul of humanity that what we had to share were the horrors of the most savage conflict ever fought. Just a week or so ago I heard Colonel Bowden postulate that more men had already died in this war than in all the ones before it back to the time of the Romans. My brothers were supremely competent and capable men, so my immaturity led me to believe that made them invincible. A well-placed ten-pound artillery shell soon disabused me of that childish notion. ------- Chapter 2 JC and I were frequent visitors to Richmond during 1862. The war was going well for the Confederacy in northern Virginia as the Union Army was in disarray while its commander was changed almost monthly. Every time they made an incursion into Virginia we sent them running back to Washington with their tails between their legs. Our soldiers were still being supplied and equipment was constantly being marshaled out of the railroad hub in Richmond. Commodore Spooner was still locked out to sea by the naval blockade at Hampton Roads so Constance was continuing my training in the art of pleasuring a woman. I was over the initial burst of love for Connie that I'd felt after she made me a man and she still loved her husband, but our passions so perfectly meshed that it was as if we were newlyweds every time we joined. I once asked her how she could love her husband and still mate with me so lustily. "My husband is much older than I, and as we've grown older his desires wane while mine wax. It was he who suggested a younger lover for me. How could I not love a man like that?" How indeed? Heck, I didn't even know him and I loved him for what he was doing for me. On the other hand, Prudence was seriously in love with the dashing Captain Colbert. This is how much she loved him: she started introducing JC to her female friends knowing that he would try to have his way with them too. Make no mistake about it, if a woman didn't jump up and slap his face in the first ten minutes of knowing JC, it was a safe bet that he'd end up under her bustle. Prudence told me that words left JC's mouth and went straight to a woman's heart. Where Prudence openly shared her friends with JC, Constance discreetly shared me with hers. You would be surprised at the number of proper ladies who enjoyed the services of a strapping sixteen-year-old boy with a sturdy staff that seldom flagged. I happily accommodated them all, from the dowdy to the ravishing. I was never disappointed in what the women offered and strove mightily to show each my utmost appreciation. I am still that way today, and I plan to remain that way for the rest of my life. I met some marvelous women; women who took a personal interest in me and helped me become a more rounded individual. My favorite beyond a doubt was Millicent Silvestry. Millicent was the widow of a merchant who had died four years previously from diphtheria. Millie was younger than Connie Spooner and quite attractive. She had a lithe, willowy figure and these big brown eyes that radiated smoky sensuality. I couldn't help but fall in love with her. Millie was an incredibly bright and educated woman and she challenged me constantly to read and advance my knowledge. One of my fondest memories of those halcyon days was of us snuggled under a blanket as I read to her. I was crushed when Millicent accepted the marriage proposal of a wealthy older man from Tennessee. She told me the news after we had spent two of the most glorious days of either of our lives together. She cried when she told me that she loved me but couldn't marry me. "I am too old for you, Dear Heart, and you are so swept up in this ghastly conflict. Better I loose you like this than to be around if you are one of those killed or maimed. This way at least we'll always have the sweet memories of our time together, and I will always have the hope that you survived this senseless, horrid war." Millie was gone when I next visited Richmond, but she had left a trunk full of books with Constance Spooner for me. Pressed in the leaves of a book of sonnets by Shakespeare was her final short note to me. In an elegant calligraphy she wrote: My Dearest Jeremiah, Expand your horizons, my love; not just your mind - but also your heart and soul. Fondly, Your Millie Connie comforted me as I cried as only a heartbroken sixteen year old could. I wasn't even embarrassed by my unmanly display. Over the next few visits the resilience of youth and Connie's unabashed libido softened Millie to a bittersweet memory. It was during this time that another one of Constance Spooner's friends named Lenora Quiller gave me a fiddle (of course Lenora called it a violin) as a gift. Miss Lenora was the oldest of Connie's friends but she took no back seat to Connie or anyone else, in the affairs of the boudoir. Miss Lenora loved to pamper me and I ate it up as if the attention were rock candy. Lenora gave me a few rudimentary violin lessons and from the minute I held the fiddle in my hand I had an affinity for it. I took the fiddle back to camp with me and spent a lot of my spare time learning how to play it. I had a good ear and within a month I could scratch out a few tunes. In six months I could sit with the old time fiddlers and keep up on Sally Goodin'. I reckon that fiddle is still my most prized possession. ------- I had various and sundry duties during actual battle, everything from dispatch rider to sharpshooter to bodyguard for staff officers. As a sharpshooter, I had a sweet handling British made Enfield rifle and keen vision so I could challenge a union soldier out to almost half a mile. I also had a Colt Navy revolver that I took off a dead Union officer. Our biggest source of weapons, ammunition and equipment by then was what we scavenged from our fallen foes. Blockades and lack of resources severely limited arms production in the Confederacy. At Fredericksburg I was attached to General Barksdale's 13th Mississippi Brigade as a sharpshooter. We sharpshooters were assigned the job of disrupting the Union Army's attempt to construct pontoon bridges across the Rappahannock River. We set up in groups of three, occupying houses along the riverbank to pick off the Yankee engineers as they strove to construct two separate bridges in front of us. Being in a group of three always allowed one man at the ready while the other two reloaded. Picking the engineers off the pontoons was a distasteful duty, as the Yankees made it target practice easy for us. Worse for the Union soldiers was the fact that the closer they came to us the easier they were to pick off. We dropped scores of them into the river as the bridges moved slowly out from the far shore before they suddenly stopped working and cleared the partially completed bridges. The fog that had blanketed the hills above the river had slowly dissolved, so we waited tensely for the artillery barrage we knew was coming. We held fast to our position as the Union cannoneers started firing registration rounds to sight in their field guns. When the first rounds fell among the houses, we sharpshooters moved out of the houses and forward to our secondary fighting positions nearer the river. It was a terrible idea to wait out an artillery bombardment inside a building unless you wanted to be buried under a pile of rubble. We laid ourselves flat in the two-foot deep trench we had dug behind a low stone wall and huddled there as the intense barrage began. The roar and explosions of the artillery fire seemed to last forever as over two hundred field guns fired a total of five thousand rounds. We saw and survived the biggest artillery engagement in history that day. When the bombardment lifted we cautiously raised our heads and saw hundreds of union soldiers rowing across the river in small boats. We engaged them out on the water but there were too many of them to stop. We were forced to fight a delaying action as the Union soldiers secured the houses nearest the river and established a presence on the southern shore to protect the engineers now rushing to complete the pontoon bridges. I shook hands with my fellow sharpshooters and returned to General Lee's headquarters on Marye's Heights when the 13th Mississippi retired from the battlefield. Later that afternoon I stood off to the side of the general staff at the top of the small knoll, my rifle at the ready. We were all watching in horrified fascination as wave after wave of blue clad soldiers hurled themselves across an open four hundred yards against the two Confederate divisions dug in along a sunken roadbed. It was as stunning a display of futile bravery as I would ever hope to see. In all that day, five union divisions made fourteen brigade sized charges into the withering fire of dug in infantry and well registered artillery. I heard two of the truest things in my life that day. One was a remark by Lieutenant Colonel Porter, the chief artillery officer for General Longstreet. "A chicken could not live on that field when we open on it," Porter bragged. The other was a remark General Lee also made to General Longstreet. "It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it," Lee said. Things started going down hill for the Confederate Army in 1863. Once on the way down that slippery slope there was no way back up. Every soldier in the army knew that our only hope was to make the price of victory too high for the Union. We underestimated the resolve of the Yankees in that regard but we never underestimated the bravery of the Union soldiers. What frayed us the most was the shear number of soldiers the Union could keep throwing into the line. Not just warm bodies either, but fully equipped, well-fed, determined men. It did not deter them that we were killing them three and four to one during each engagement. It did not bother them because they had the replacements and we did not. I will not bore you with more descriptions of the carnage each side inflicted on the other as we fought to defend Richmond. But I will tell you that whether we won or lost, every day was worse for us than the one before. I think the blow that effectively ended it for us was Gettysburg. True, the war lasted for almost two more agonizing years after that battle, but the tide clearly turned that infamous week in the gently rolling hills of Pennsylvania. When we started moving north up the Shenandoah Valley in early June of 1863, we were ecstatic that we were taking the fight to the Yankees for a change. General Lee's thinking was that a strong attack into the heart of the Union would weaken the Federals' resolve, while at the same time removing the heat of battle from Virginia and Mississippi. For three weeks his plan worked to perfection as we drove through western Maryland into southern Pennsylvania. Then at Gettysburg, in early July 1863, it all came undone. This time it was the proud Army of Northern Virginia that limped back across the Mason-Dixon Line licking its wounds. While we were fighting for our lives at Gettysburg, US Grant and the Union Army of Tennessee split the Confederacy in half when he captured Vicksburg, Mississippi. The loss of the western states for supplies and soldiers was a serious blow to our fortunes. Starting in the autumn of 1863, even trips to Richmond were no longer fun as the city filled with refugees and shortages and rationing were commonplace. Commodore Spooner finally found a way through the Yankee blockage and smuggled his wife and daughter out of Richmond and into West Virginia. Strangely enough, during our later visits to Richmond, JC did not encourage me to accompany him when he went carousing. Instead, he religiously delivered me to Lenora Quiller's loving hands when we visited the city and then went on his wastrel way. It was just as well he did because I never developed his taste for drink and gambling. Not to mention that Miss Lenora was an expert in the French manner of lovemaking and was diligently making me one as well. After romping on Lenora's big four-poster bed she would teach me the rudiments of reading music. I never became adept at sight-reading music but with a sheet of music and some time to practice I was able to play nigh on anything. On June 1, 1864 my brother Joshua was wounded and captured during the Battle of Cold Harbor. Joshua's Regiment, the 17th Georgia Infantry, was decimated when they counterattacked a Union Brigade that breached the Confederate lines; over seven hundred and fifty Georgians were captured. I never saw my brother again. After the war my ma told me that he had died in a Union hospital during the amputation of his leg. Cold Harbor was another example of us winning the battles while losing the war. Union losses at Cold Harbor were over thirteen thousand while ours were less than three thousand. Yet all thirteen thousand men from the 120,000 man Army of the Potomac were replaced while only about ten percent of the losses to the 65,000 man Army of Northern Virginia were. During the winter of 1864-1865, JC and I spent the majority of our time as Raiders, hitting the rear of the Union Army. We were trying to disrupt the seemingly endless flow of materials reaching Grant's forces, but more importantly, we were commandeering whatever could be of use to the Army of Northern Virginia. We were desperately short of about anything you could name except courage and leadership. Our biggest coup was a raid deep into Maryland in which we liberated two wagons full of brand new Spencer cavalry carbines with thousands of cartridges for them. JC and I put on stolen Union uniforms, walked into the laxly guarded supply depot in the middle of the night, and simply drove off in the wagons. We managed to dodge Union patrols and made it back to Virginia without having a shot fired in our direction. At JC's insistence we loaded all the bounty on one wagon, save for six of the short rifles and three cases of cartridges. JC sent me and the full wagon back towards Richmond while he headed for Lynchburg with the other. JC was caching weapons and supplies for after the war. He told me, "The war is almost over Jeb and, like it or not, we are on the short end of the stick. I suspect we'll see a spate of lawlessness when all is said and done. What we salvage now might make the difference between our families and us living or dying." On the ninth day of April 1865, General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to U.S. Grant, the Commanding General of Union Forces. General Grant's terms of surrender were generous and, just like that, we were paroled as noncombatants and set free to go home. It was a bedraggled but proud group of men that cheered General Lee's courage and conviction as we mustered for our last formation. It was also a still defiant bunch that watched the formal surrender. The terms offered by Grant and accepted by Lee let each officer keep his side arm, mount and personal baggage. JC had planned for this day for the both of us by card-sharking our meager pay into a sizeable amount of gold and silver coins. JC's only real grimace was being allowed to take only one mule instead of the nine with which he arrived. Of course, him being JC and all, his bellyaching was only a ruse. He had eight more mules cached near Lynchburg at the farm of a widow way back in the hills. Along with the mules he had a covered freight dray, supplies, rifles and clothes for both of us, all of it stolen from the Union Army. I had my fiddle, my rifle and my old friend Zeke. Zeke had made it through the war with nary a scratch just as I had. JC insisted on escorting me home. "I didn't raise you for the last four years so someone could rob and kill you," he said. I had to laugh at that because by then I was fully grown and stood about four inches taller and thirty pounds heavier than JC. But I was pleased he was going with me, whatever the reason. JC was closer to me than my brothers had been. We set out together for west-central Georgia in the middle of April. We took a long circuitous route home, skirting to the west to avoid that dishonorable little mangy polecat Sherman's forty-mile wide path of destruction and the Union Army's occupation forces. I am still waiting for some Yankee to explain to me why it was necessary for Sherman to rape and pillage his way across Georgia. Burning the farms of defenseless women is about as low as a man could sink, I know that the Good Lord has a special place in hell reserved for Sherman and his ilk. We heard the news of Lincoln's assassination while we were traveling down the Shenandoah Valley. As much as I disliked Lincoln for his relentless prosecution of the war, I was saddened by his death. Lincoln had been resolute in rejecting the Confederate State's succession, but now that the war was over, most of us figured he'd pursue reassimilating those same states with equal zeal. His death meant that those who wished the south punished even further now had a free rein. We arrived home on the twentieth of May, three days after my pa was buried. Joseph Isaac Brock was laid low to an early grave from ambush, shot in the back by a bushwhacker while delivering some corn squeezin' over to Waverly Hall. Ma was in poor shape when I arrived home. She perked up some with my arrival but the loss of my father and brothers had sapped her of the will to live. My widowed sisters-in-law and their children were all living in the house with my ma. Jacob's widow, Anne, had two daughters. Ruth (named after my mother) was thirteen and her sister Rose was ten. Joshua's widow, Florence, had a boy of seven named after his father and a five-year-old boy named Morgan that never met his father. Ruth was the only one of my nieces and nephews who recognized or remembered me. Ma's adopted daughter Rachael and Rachael's nine-year-old daughter Carole also lived at the house. Rachael's husband, Coop, had been killed when Union raiders derailed the train on which he was a brakeman. The raiders dynamited a bridge from under the train, plunging it into the Flint River. I was fuming mad when I learned that the farms of both my brothers had been sold at auction on the steps of the courthouse within days of the war ending. Carpetbaggers and scalawags bought up over fifty farms of soldiers killed in the war simply by paying the back taxes. When I found out that one man bought both my brothers' farms, I suddenly had a suspicion as to why pa was killed. As pa's heir, I now owned a hundred and sixty acre quarter section of land smack dab in the middle of one Pollard T. Cummins' almost four thousand acre tract. Worst of all for Pollard Cummins, my acreage included a twenty-acre wide strip of bottomland right on the river where Cummins wanted to build a railroad trestle bridge and cotton mill. JC stayed with us and helped me work the crop pa had planted in the early spring. His presence sure helped lighten up the dark mood that hung over the farm. As the summer came on us JC's magic was having its affect on my sisters-in-law, especially Anne. The kids were all crazy about him as well; he was Uncle JC in no time. To JC's eternal credit he never tried to seduce my sisters-in-law. Of course, because he didn't, Anne set out to seduce him. Rachael didn't have much to do with JC but she clung to me as if she was drowning and I could swim. Rachael and I had always been close; she practically raised me until she up and married Cooperton Silas. After Coop's death, only my presence seemed to bring her out of her doldrums. As soon as I was settled, I visited the Sheriff's Office in Hamilton, the county seat. I went to make inquiries about the search for my father's murderer. I very much did not like what I saw going on in Hamilton as scalawags, carpetbaggers and the so-called New Republicans were taking over the town. The new sheriff was one of the scalawags. He was a mill boss from Columbus who had bought his way out of serving in the army by hiring someone to go in his place. He turned a deaf ear when I presented my suspicions about Pollard Cummins. Instead, he informed me that I needed to turn in my weapons as directed by the terms of surrender imposed by Sherman's goons. "Sheriff, I have the pardon of U. S. Grant to keep my sidearm. As near as I can figure, Grant is still Sherman's superior. So, I'll be keeping these guns. Besides, I have a feeling I'm going to need them to defend my family before long. Make no mistake about it, I will do whatever is necessary to protect me and mine." The sheriff blustered and fumed some at my proclamation but, in the end I walked out of his office still armed. I figured the Sheriff for a coward and a bully. I didn't think he'd be a threat to us but I was dead certain that he would never be of any help. As we worked the farm that summer we were mostly oblivious to the anarchy that was rampant throughout Georgia. The occupying Federal authorities disbanded the state government and Charles Johnson was appointed governor by President Andrew Johnson to replace the secessionist Joe Brown. Georgia had to renounce secession, ratify the 13th Amendment and repudiate its war debt to be allowed back into the Union. Until those conditions were met, the only ones receiving help from the government were freedmen, carpetbaggers and scalawags. 'Reconstruction' they called it; 'tyranny' I called it. We received a visit later in the summer from Pollard Cummins. Cummins was a smarmy, florid faced, fat man who clearly wasn't suffering as were his fellow Georgians. My mother did not let Cummins even step on the porch; instead she left him sitting in his fancy surrey and sent Rachael to fetch me. I was no friendlier to Cummins than Ma had been once he introduced himself. Cummins must have been used to being treated with distaste. "Mr. Brock, I'll come right to the point. I will pay you two hundred and fifty dollars for your farm. You can keep your livestock and any personal possessions." Leaving the farm and moving westward was something I had thought of and discussed with my family often. There was nothing here for us except unpleasant memories anyway. I wouldn't mind a bit selling the farm but if it was to this weasel I was going to make him pay. "Mr. Cummins, that is not nearly enough money. What with stealing my brother's farms for less than fifty dollars each, I figure you should be more than willing to pay me six-hundred fifty dollars for mine so as things will come out even. That price would leave something for my brothers' widows and might even help your conscience — if you have one." Cummins' face became even redder at my insults. With a visible effort he calmed himself. "My conscience is clear young man; it is no fault of mine if your brothers were stupid enough to participate in an unwinable war. However, from the kindness of my heart, I would be willing to pay you half what you asked, three hundred twenty-five dollars and you clear out in a week." "The price is six-fifty and we leave in the spring, that is my final offer Sir." Cummins was clearly a man who was accustomed to getting what he wanted. He glared at me and some of his anger slipped through his cordial façade. "Stubborn as your father I see. Be careful you don't meet his fate. I hear that there are gangs of you Rebels loose on the countryside with malice in their hearts and mischief on their minds." It was my turn to clamp down on the anger that rose in my throat, bitter as bile, at his reference to my father and his veiled threat. "I have put the war behind me Cummins, but I will kill any man that seeks to harm me or my family." Cummins turned his buggy around and drove out of the yard without saying another word. I watched him until he disappeared from sight. Cummins was the type of man you could never turn your back on. When he disappeared from view, I walked back into the house. It was time for a family meeting to put together a plan for moving away from this place, whether the farm was sold or not. We also had to figure out a way for us to protect ourselves from what I knew were not idle threats from Cummins. ------- Chapter 3 We held our family council and we unanimously decided to head west in the spring. Everyone even agreed with me that the Nebraska Territory was going to be our objective. I had the two thousand dollars JC had won for me, so selling the farm was only important for my family's honor. We planned on all sitting down at least weekly to develop and refine a plan for the move. JC agreed that he would accompany us at least as far as North Texas. The second part of the family meeting was how we would protect ourselves from the unpleasantness that we knew was looming. JC and I figured that Cummins probably had some thugs in his hire that would happily dispatch us to our maker and burn the farm to the ground for a few dollars in whiskey money. To that end we divided up into three teams: JC, Anne and Rose; Mama, Ruth and Florence; and Rachael, Carol and me. Then we instituted a watch schedule, with each team taking a four-hour shift. Two members of the team on watch would be out in the barn while one waited in the house. We positioned weapons near the shuttered windows of the house so they were easily accessible to the others when the team on watch raised the alarm. We had plenty of weapons, both those belonging to JC and me, as well as those from four other households. All of the women could shoot with varying degrees of accuracy, and all were more than ready to contribute to the family's defense. Rachael and I were the members of our team that stood watch from the hayloft of the barn. While on watch, Rachael and I were alone for the first measurable amount of time since I returned from the war. We talked a lot that first night; some of the things she said astonished me. We were discussing the move to Nebraska when out of the blue she said, "I want to be your woman, Jeremiah." She said it so casually that at first I thought she was spoofing me. I had been staring out of the hayloft as we talked, her pronouncement made me jerk my head around towards her. "Wwhat?" I stammered. She regarded me seriously as she reached her hands up and unpinned her hair. Rachael had beautiful hair the rich reddish color of chestnuts. It hung to the small of her slender back in thick waves. The light from the three-quarter moon spilling into the loft made her tresses sparkle as if they were covered with drops of dew. "I want to be your woman," she repeated firmly. "I could care less if we ever married, but I love you and I need you Jeremiah. You are the only man I have ever felt comfortable and safe around. Coop was a good man and I loved him in a fashion but with you it is different. I felt it as soon as you came back; you make me feel as if I were Ruth's age again." I was speechless at her proclamation; all I could think to do was hold my arms out to her. She gave me one of her sweet smiles and fell into my embrace. Rachael was the first woman for whom I'd ever had a yearning. I discovered the illicit joy of self-gratification to mental images of her. I had always thought that she was beautiful with her amazing hair and flawless skin. She was slender and graceful, medium of height with a comely figure. I think a part of my besottment with Millie Silvestry stemmed from her resemblance to Rachael. So Rachael's pronouncement wasn't unwelcome by any means. However, there was a huge fly in the ointment. "I would love that Rachael; you know I have always adored you, but what about Mama and the rest of the family?" "Mama knows how I feel, Sweet Baby. She loves us both and wants to see us happy because of all the sorrow our family has been through. The rest of the family will be fine with the idea. We women have already discussed it. In fact, Florence wants the same thing as I, and Ruth fully expects to marry you one day." To say I was flabbergasted would be putting the matter too mildly. I could understand in a way the feelings of Rachael and Florence because the war had killed off a large percentage of the men of their generation and left crippled a great number of others. I admit freely that I was not put off by the idea of being with either woman. I was already strongly attracted to Rachael, and Florence was a fine woman who was pretty to boot. I wasn't going to rush into anything precipitously, however. If I learned anything in the war, it was the consequences of acting rashly. "This all comes as a surprise to me, Rachael. I don't quite know how to feel about it, especially what you said about Ruth. She's awfully young to be making decisions about marriage," I said. "I agree about her being young," Rachael said, "but she sounded determined. There is plenty of time for her to change her mind, though, before she's of an age to marry. Who knows what she'll decide once we arrive out west. Anyway, that's enough talk about other women. You and I are here all alone sitting under a lover's moon; don't you think you should at least give me a kiss?" I covered her lips with mine and kissed her the way Lorena had taught me. I guess Rachael wasn't expecting me to know how to kiss or something because her eyes popped open and she moaned into my mouth. I was pleased that I was bringing her pleasure, so I stayed the course using just my tongue and lips on her neck as I worked to divest her of her simple frock. All the skin I uncovered was smooth and white as alabaster. Her breasts were small but well formed, her hips and rear delightfully curvaceous. I kissed my way down her body as she cooed in pleasure from my attention. When my lips found her treasure she gasped and stiffened. She started to sit up and moved her hand to my head to push me away until my lips found her nubbin. When I hit the sensitive little organ, she moaned and fell back onto the blanket upon which we'd been sitting. She peaked quickly, gasping and thrashing around in pleasure. I kissed my way back up to her body until I was stretched out beside her. I held her and stroked her magnificent mane as she regained her composure. Finally her breathing resided to its normal rhythm and she opened her eyes. "That was fantastic beyond anything I've ever experienced, my darling man. Wherever did you learn how to pleasure a woman that way?" "I would not be a gentleman if I told, but I am very pleased that you enjoyed it," I replied. She pulled my head down and kissed me passionately. She broke the kiss and actually laughed out loud for the first time I could remember. I asked her what was so funny. She replied that she thought she'd be the one teaching an inexperienced boy about lovemaking, not the other way around. I chuckled too. "Let me show you what else I learned," I said eagerly. As I said before, I'm not one for idle boasting, so let us leave it that Rachael enjoyed being the beneficiary of my lessons from Connie and her friends. Two nights later I wasn't surprised that my watch partner was Florence. Nor was I surprised that she wanted me to show her all I'd learned up in Richmond. Florence was more outgoing than Rachael by orders of magnitude and every bit as passionate. Florence was shorter than Rachael by a couple of inches and carried more padding, but she was just as pretty in her own way. She wore her long light brown hair in a single braid and her big brown eyes danced with mischief and good humor. It was nearly impossible to be of an ill nature when around her. I could tell that we weren't the only team finding novel ways to entertain ourselves up in the hayloft, as JC and Anne became more demonstrative in their affection toward each other. Still, it was a surprise to me when JC came to talk to me while I was in the barn sharpening a scythe. I had five of the implements to peen and stone and two that needed repairs to the snath (handle). We would be needing them shortly to lay in hay and fodder for the winter. JC stood next to me, uncharacteristically quiet, until I looked at him inquiringly. "Jeb, I think I'm in love with Anne and she says she loves me too. It is the damnedest thing, because I can't recall ever feeling about a woman this way. I can't think when I'm around her. She tells me something and even if it is a thing I wouldn't ever do, I find my head nodding up and down as if it was the best idea I ever heard. I'm going to ask her to marry me." "This is a good thing JC only if you are not going to be chasing around and gambling as you did in Richmond. Anne is an adult and can make up her own mind but she and the girls are family to me." JC grinned ruefully. "Them days are over Jeb, word of honor. For some reason Anne makes me not even think about such as that. One thing though, when we move west I ain't sod bustin' for a living. I want to ranch, run a few head of cattle and maybe breed some mules and horses." I returned his grin. "I am done farming when we leave here, JC. I have never wanted to farm anyway; my feet are too itchy for even ranching probably." JC and Anne together was one of those oddities for which only love could account. They were opposites in every manner you could measure. JC was stocky and ruddy with black hair; Anne was willowy, fair and blonde. JC was easy going and talkative while Anne was serious and quiet. I guess, come to think about it, they complemented each other perfectly. Anne was the one who finally dragged JC's real name out of him. She said she wasn't marrying a man who refused to tell her his real name. JC finally fessed up at supper that night. Right in the middle of the meal he got down on one knee in front of Anne's chair. "My real name is Julius Caesar Colberteri, Anne. Now will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?" Rachael and I were on watch about a week after JC proposed to Anne when eight riders tried to sneak up on us. We saw them from the loft as they led their mounts to within a few hundred feet of the house. After a short conference one man held the horses and the other seven crept forward. When they were about a hundred feet away from the house two of the men lit creosote torches while three others started to move around behind the house. Their plan was clear; they were going to set the house on fire and probably kill anyone who came out the doors or windows. Rachael was armed with my Enfield and one of our cap and ball pistols, a Colt in .36 caliber. I had my Spencer repeater. I put my lips to Rachael's ear and told her to fire at the man with the torch on the right when I gave her the signal. Rachael appeared scared but determined; I knew she was capable of hitting the man from this distance. On my count of three we fired also simultaneously. The man I hit dropped to one knee but held onto the torch; Rachael's target pitched backwards and his torch went flying through the air. The airborne torch landed behind the other two men and silhouetted them even better than the half moon had. I worked the Spencer's mechanism and dropped another. I grabbed Rachael's arm and pulled her backwards out of the barn's upper door when the remaining man fired a pistol in our direction. The pall of smoke from our shots was a dead giveaway as to our location. As we were wiggling backwards I heard shooting coming from the house. I hoped that JC and the other women were accounting for themselves as well as we had. We left the Enfield and scrambled down the ladder and out the back door of the barn. As soon as we were outside in the shadows I pulled Rachael against me and kissed her hard. "You are some kind of a special woman Rachael, it made me randy watching you in action," I whispered. No, I am not that big a degenerate, but Rachael appeared shaken by having to shoot someone, so I was trying to snap her out of it. "Now all you have to do is keep an eye on me as I move around the side of the barn and make sure no one sneaks up behind me, okay honey?" She gave me a shaky smile, nodded and squeezed my hand. I handed her the Spencer and took the Colt. The revolver was fully loaded and I had a spare loaded cylinder in my pocket. I opted for the hand gun because I thought I could move quieter with a less cumbersome weapon. I was going to circle around as quickly as I could and get the drop on the man holding the horses. I figured that any survivors were bound to head that way also and I could mop up any of them that were still alive. I stayed in the shadows and moved to the corner of the barn looking into the front yard. Nothing was moving so I motioned Rachael to join me. I had Rachael lie prone behind the corner of the building and told her to drop anyone coming towards the house unless she recognized them as family. When I was sure she understood what I wanted I slipped back around the barn and crept along the fence and among the big live oaks and hickory trees surrounding the house. It took me about ten minutes to maneuver around behind the horses. It wasn't difficult to find them as the horses nickered occasionally and two men were whispering urgently to one another. The two raiders didn't know I was there until I was only a few feet behind them. "Don't move unless you want to join your friends in hell," I said quietly. Of course the man that wasn't tending the horses started to swing around, pistol in his hand. I shot him in the head without a thought about it. I was protected and semi-concealed behind a big pine tree and could probably have slowed him down instead of killing him. I could have but I didn't, because by attacking my family he had made his decision that it was his night to die. The other man did not so much as twitch. The horses didn't bolt with the gunshot; they were well-trained warhorses. "Lie on your stomach and put you arms behind your back," I ordered the remaining man. He quickly complied. "Don't kill me mister, I'm just watching the horses. I ain't even got a gun," he begged. I didn't reply to his beseeching as I moved to check his compatriot. The man I shot was quite dead, a gaping wound where his right eye had been. I removed his belt and took his pistol from his lifeless fingers. The man had been armed with a LaMat grapeshot revolver. Finding the man with a LaMat was a surprise because the only others I'd seen were carried by high-ranking Confederate officers. PT Beauregard carried one, and so did Jeb Stuart. The weapon was not hardy enough to take the punishment of life with a line soldier. The LaMat was in excellent repair with all nine cylinders and the underslung shotgun chamber loaded. I put it in my belt, sat on the other man's back and trussed up his hands with his friend's belt. The man I tied up was true to his word as the only thing on his belt was a skinning knife. I confiscated the knife and took a closer look at him in the moon light. The side of the man's head was disfigured as if a good sized portion of his skull had been caved in. His disfigurement and his not being armed led me to believe that he might be addle-brained. "Friend, you have one chance of leaving here alive tonight. If you make a sound, you'll forfeit that chance," I said to the trussed up man. He nodded his understanding vigorously. I kept him covered and dragged his dead compatriot off behind a small stand of scrub oak. I returned to the other man, helped him to his feet, and prodded him towards a pair of big pines about twenty feet in front of the horses. There was still gunfire coming from the direction of the house, but it was sporadic; a single shot would ring out then answering fire from the house. I was able to distinguish three distinct weapons firing from outside the house. The men firing on the house seemed intent on earning their blood money and that put me in a quandary. If I stayed put they might succeed in setting fire to the house or hurting someone in my family. I made my decision and untied my prisoner. "Gather up the horses and follow me," I ordered. The man grinned crookedly, saluted and said, "Right away, Captain." He walked over to the horses and cooed gently to them as he untied both ends of the picket line the horses were secured to. The horses followed him placidly as he walked back towards me. I was impressed at the way he handled the horses and told him so. "Animals like me," he said. "They don't care if'n I'm ugly and simple." We followed the fence line back towards the barn keeping in the shadows of the hickory trees. At the end of the fence I stopped and scanned the area around the barn looking for Rachael. It would be the devil's luck to be shot by a woman who professed to love me. I finally spotted her hunkered down behind the watering trough at the corner of the barn. I stayed out of sight from the house as best I could and gave a whippoorwill call twice. I waited a few seconds then moved along the fence closer to her. I stopped again and repeated my very good imitation of the night bird that sang around the farm all summer long. When Rachael seemed to be looking in my direction I gave her a slight wave and stood up hoping the moonlight was enough for her to identify me. Rachael waved back briefly so we made our way over to her. Rachael hugged me fiercely when I made it to the barn and move behind the horse trough with her. We had a hurriedly whispered conversation. I told her about killing one of the raiders and how I figured besides my captive only three were left. She concurred and said they were all in back of the house. Someone in the house dispatched the man with the torch I had wounded. I had my prisoner lead the horses into the barn then retied his hands. I told Rachael that if the prisoner moved or yelled to shoot him, then I pulled the Lamat out of my belt and moved around the barn and towards the back of the house. The back of the house faced into a wooded area that started about sixty feet from the rear wall. In between the house and the woods were Ma's small garden plot, our well and the outhouse. One of the raiders was behind the privy, while the other two were about thirty feet apart at the edge of the woods behind him. Thinking the man behind the outhouse was the biggest threat, I edged my way closer to him. I braced my firing arm against a tree about fifteen paces away from him, fixed the center of his back in my sights and shot him. As soon as I fired I recocked the Lamat and moved to put the tree between the next closest raider and me. Almost simultaneously he and I fired; a split second later a third shot rang out. The man in front of me didn't have a chance; my bullet hit him square in the chest and he catapulted backwards, his shot at me harmlessly whistling past the tree. Unfortunately the third shot, fired by the man I had stupidly left for dead at the privy, hit me low in the back on my left side. Actually the bullet caught me in my big stupid Georgia butt. The impact of the slug hurt like hell and pitched me face first against the tree. I bounced off the trunk of that big hickory tree with a grunt and fell to my side just as the man at the outhouse fired again. Mercifully, his second bullet thumped harmlessly into the tree and I was able to twist around and bring the LaMat to bear. I thumbed the scatter gun trigger and fired at the kneeling miscreant before he could align his sight on me again. The LaMat discharged with a deafening roar and flames shot a foot out the barrel. My aim was hasty but the shotgun pellets covered a wide enough area so that many of them hit my target like a swarm of angry hornets. The man grunted as he pitched backwards, his pistol flying up into the air. I shot him again with the revolver, hoping that he'd stay dead this time, before turning my attention towards the third and last raider. The exchanges of gunfire between me and the two other men lasted 30 seconds at the most and I was still shielded by the bole of the hickory tree. When I cautiously peeked around the tree, I caught sight of the last man running pell-mell towards where he thought his horse was still tied. I tried to stand up and give chase but it hurt like hell to put my weight on my right leg. I was about to hail the house about the third man when JC stepped around the corner and shot the escaping raider with his Spencer. JC ducked back around the corner of the house as the man went down, so I hollered out to him. "That was the last of them, JC. The rest are dead except for one that Rachael is holding at gun point by the barn. I need some help though. I'm wounded and I can't walk," I yelled. Looking back on it, I probably should have not shouted that last little bit out, because as soon as I said I was hurt all hell broke loose. The reaction from JC and my family was out of proportion to the extent of my injuries but I was unable to get that point across to them. JC reached me first but Florence wasn't far behind him. Between them, they managed to help me into the house. Ma made a big fuss over me once I was in the house; while JC went to collect our prisoner and Rachael from the barn. Ma made a pallet for me by the fireplace, had Flo and Anne help me lay down, and then unceremoniously cut the back of my britches away so she could see the wound. I was mortified, as everyone, including the youngsters, stood around gawking at my big old white and shiny butt. Ma even had young Ruby holding the coal oil lamp as she poked and prodded, unmindful of my protests. "Hush up, Jeremiah, and let me work," she admonished. Then she added insult to indignity by giving me a stinging swat on my uninjured cheek. My nieces and nephews thought that grandma smacking my butt was hysterically funny. They were having a good laugh at my expense when Rachael came busting through the door. Her worried look turned to one of confusion as everyone was laughing except yours truly. My nephew Joshua couldn't wait to tell her what happened. "Jeb got shot in the butt and Granny spanked him for being a big crybaby," he whooped. I won't subject you to the grisly particulars of Ma plucking the bullet out of my backside. It hurt like tarnations but I suffered through it thanks to a couple of cups of Pa's corn liquor that Ma kept around for medicinal purposes. Ma also liberally applied that same liquor to the wound to cleanse it. That hurt worse than her poking around for the slug. While Ma was doctoring on me, only Rachael, Florence and JC stayed in the room. Rachael and Flo held my hands whilst JC stood around making pithy and amusing banter at my expense. One of the things he pointed out was the irony of me making it unscathed through four years of war only to be shot in the hind end by another Confederate soldier. I was able to gingerly walk the day after the attack and wanted to do just that, but Ma and my women wouldn't hear of it. They were adamant I stay down for a few more days so as not to risk tearing open Ma's stitching. For four agonizing days my movements were strictly limited to using the thunder pot. While I was off my feet, JC and the rest of the family took care of the bodies of the men that attacked us. The man that I'd captured ended up becoming our hired hand because Ma didn't have the heart to send him out into the world alone, what with him being slow witted and such. The man, whose name we learned was Curtis McIntire, turned out to be as harmless as a puppy. Curtis's head injury left him about the same age as my nephew Joshua. He was a hard worker though, and he loved Ma to death for the simple kindness she showed him. My being bedridden especially rankled because on the day after the attack, JC paid Pollard T. Cummins a little visit. I didn't know anything about him doing that until he returned home and handed me a handful of Yankee currency and a poke jangling with gold and silver coins. "Cummins agreed to your price and terms for selling the farm, Jeb, and he even sent along a little money to help out while you recover from your wound," he said at my questioning look. When I pressed him for details all he told me was that Pollard had agreed that we could stay where we were until springtime. No matter how I prodded he wouldn't tell me any more. Whatever he did also convinced Cummins to leave us alone until we were gone. We never heard another peep from him for the rest of the winter. Winters in west-central Georgia were nowhere near as cold as we'd suffered in northern Virginia during the war. Thankfully, the winter of 1865 was even milder than usual. We had a few nights in the twenties and awoke to many a morning of frost, but the temperature almost always rose enough for us to work outside. We had a plenty of work to do to be prepared to move out as soon as winter broke. We had four households of possessions to condense down into three wagons. We also had wagons to repair and food items to purchase and pack. Essentially, we had to prepare to be self sufficient for at least three months. JC and I also used the time to modify the freight drays we'd appropriated from the Union Army into covered wagons. We bought canvas from a mill in Columbus and wood from the sawmill in Catawlah. We spent time training teams to pull the four wagons we were taking with us. We had two teams of three mules and a wheel horse to pull the drays, a pair of mules to pull the bigger of our two farm wagons and two horses to pull the smallest wagon. We trained everyone big enough on how to drive and maintain the wagons and we worked out a system of duties and responsibilities to keep us organized and moving once we were on the trail. Our time working with General Lee's headquarters' trains proved invaluable in preparing us for our trip westward. During the second week of December, Anne and JC were married at Antioch Baptist Church. JC's transformation from a bounder and rakehell to a family man was something I thought I'd never witness. But change he did as his behavior swung like a pendulum from one extreme to the other. Anne's steady and gentle nature seemed to be the cure for all that had ailed my friend JC. It seemed as if our roles had suddenly reversed and he was now the steady and sober one while I was dallying with both Rachael and Florence. Actually, because of the number of people living under one roof, opportunities to dally were few and far between. Both women were openly affectionate to me, though, and I did manage to sneak off with one or the other often enough to take the sharp edges off all of us. ------- Chapter 4 It took me until the end of the year to completely recover from the gunshot wound inflicted on me by the raider. My recovery was slower than I hoped because the wound became septic and Ma had to remove more of the flesh surrounding the bullet's entry point. The turning of 1866 found me hale and hardy, though, and the incident was reduced to a jagged scar on my buttocks that I could not see anyway. We loaded the wagons and made our final preparations during the first week of March. We thought it safe to leave during the final weeks of winter because we would be traveling a route that would keep us well into the Deep South for the first month or so. On the tenth day of March at first light, our small wagon train pulled away from the farm. JC led us off riding one of the horses we captured from the raiders while Anne drove the first wagon in line, one of the covered drays. We had kept six of the captured horses; the other two we traded for a milk cow and her calf. We crossed the muddy Chattahoochee River at Bartlett's Ferry on Mister Bartlett's flat bottomed barge. It took four trips to transport us, our wagons and our livestock across. The river crossing put us in Alabama. We took the road that led west-southwest from the ferry dock and started the first of what would be a seemingly endless string of plodding days on the road and crisp nights along side it. We had set a goal of 20 miles a day and for the most part we managed about that many. We traveled six days a week and, at Ma's insistence, we rested on the Sabbath. The trip was made less odious because we were all with people we liked and loved. Even as young as I was at the time I knew that, in the long run, liking someone was every bit as important as loving them. We rolled into Opelika, Alabama around noon on our third day of travel. We were all excited about actually arriving somewhere, even if it was only a town fifty or so miles from the farm. From Opelika, it took us four days to reach Montgomery, the state capital. We stayed outside of Montgomery for two nights and spent all of one day reprovisioning and seeing the sights. Montgomery had survived the war in much better shape than Atlanta. Although Montgomery was under Union military rule, everyone we met was still unapologizingly Confederate. Thankfully, the new JC was still as good a forager as he had been during the war so we left Montgomery with enough supplies to last us a couple of weeks. In amongst the supplies was a leather bound folio of sheet music that JC had snapped up for a silver dollar. That book and my fiddle provided us with many a night of entertainment during our trip. We made steady but unspectacular progress across western Alabama and crossed into Mississippi on the twelfth morning. We stopped in Meridian for our nooning on Saturday, our fourteenth day on the trail and our eleventh day of actual travel. We set up camp outside of town. JC took the family into town to shop and look around whilst Curtis and I greased the wagon wheels and performed the other small but vital tasks required to keep us moving. Saturday evening we all took a bath then stayed up late as I fiddled and we sang every song any of us could think of. Sunday morning we dressed up and went to church. The war had not been kind to the congregation of the Meridian Baptist Church as most of the women at the service were wrapped in widow's weeds, while what few men there were in the congregation were missing limbs or disfigured in some other manner. My mother, sisters-in-law and Rachael had plenty of sad company, all praying for the men they'd lost in the horrible war. It took us twenty-two days total to reach Vicksburg and the Mississippi River. We had traveled approximately three hundred and sixty miles. Unfortunately, that distance was only about one quarter of our trip and we were all already road weary. We camped outside of the bustling river port town, held a family meeting and decided to rest our stock and ourselves for a couple of days before crossing into Louisiana. As soon as the meeting ended, JC frocked himself in his Sunday go to meeting clothes and without a word of explanation saddled his horse and rode into town. I was worried that JC had back-slid into his old wastrel ways, but Anne seemed unconcerned so I kept my mouth firmly closed. We were all relaxing by our fire, me sawing on my fiddle, when JC rode back into camp. Anne shot me a look when her husband showed up as if to say she never doubted he'd be with her at bedtime. JC unsaddled his mount, put away his tack and sauntered over to the fire. He grinned at my inquisitive and slightly censorious look, then pulled Anne to her feet and kissed her soundly. When he finally let the poor woman catch her breath he turned to me. "No whiskey on my breath Jeb, and no smell of gambling on me. Instead, I walked the water front and secured us transport up the river clear to Saint Louis. Going up river will shorten our trip by at least three weeks." Three weeks less in the saddle or wagon seat was great news. Yet, before I jumped on JC's bandwagon I had to remind him of something. "If we go up river to Saint Louis, we will not be going through Texas and you will miss seeing your family." JC shrugged and pulled Anne tighter against his side. "I reckon Texas ain't going no place, and I am with my family right now," he averred. When JC said that, I swear Anne's eyelids fluttered as if she were about to swoon. She turned her head sharply to look at him, flashed him one of her rare and beautiful smiles and practically dragged him off to their wagon. The morning after JC told me about going north on the Mississippi to Saint Louis we held another family meeting. JC explained his idea in detail and gave us his rationale for taking the river instead of striking out over land. The only real bone of contention with the whole idea was the cost. The river men wanted eighty dollars to transport us the four hundred miles up to Saint Louis. JC told us that he thought he could negotiate us a better deal by bartering off some of our surplus of weapons. We finally all agreed that JC's plan was our best option and decided that we would allow him to trade one of our extra Spencer Carbines. Every one of us had great confidence in JC's bartering ability; he haggled like a Yankee fishwife. Later that morning, JC went back into town and returned with the riverboat captain. Captain Lowell Pickett was a Yankee from Ohio. He had spent the war doing the same thing for the Union that he had been doing for the twenty years before, ferrying freight up and down the mighty Mississippi. Captain Pickett lived in Cairo, Illinois, at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. JC met him at the wharf while he was unloading a shipment of mules and horses for the Union garrison. Vicksburg's commercial water front and wharfs were not on the Mississippi. Instead, they were on the Yazoo River, a slow moving tributary of the Mississippi. Captain Pickett looked over our wagons and livestock and pronounced that he could easily carry us and all our possessions up to Saint Louis but wanted to know why we just didn't steam all the way to Saint Joe (Saint Joseph, Missouri). That idea got all of our attention and JC and the Captain moved a ways from the camp to dicker over the price of such a trip. The men settled on a price of one hundred twenty dollars which included four cabins on the riverboat. We had originally thought we'd be stuck on the barge the Captain pulled with his old side wheeler riverboat, so one-twenty with rooms included sounded as if it were a bargain. Ma and the other women out-did themselves on the super they prepared that night with Captain Pickett as our guest of honor. We sent him back to his boat stuffed to the gills on fried ham, black-eyed peas and Ma's sweet cornbread. With Ma in charge of meals, good victuals were never a problem for us. The following morning we loaded up the two large covered freight drays and JC and I drove them down to the wharf. I was impressed with my first glimpse of the Belle of Ohio. The riverboat was about a hundred and twenty-five feet long, thirty feet wide and two full decks high. The wheelhouse was perched atop the second deck at the front of the boat. The boat was painted a gleaming white with red piping and the paddles on the side wheel were painted blue with white stars. The barge was at least one hundred feet by fifty feet. Half the barge was fenced off for animals. Even the barge seemed freshly whitewashed and was sparkling clean. The condition of the boat and barge greatly eased my mind about embarking on them. Captain Pickett's crew was just as well turned out as his boat, and they were efficient to boot. In less than an hour, both wagons were lashed to the deck of the barge and our horses and mules were settled into the fenced off portion of the deck. JC and I stowed our harness tack in one of the wagons and rode back to our camp on the spare horses we had brought with us. The rest of the family was loaded up and ready to go by the time we made it back to camp. Our second trip went as smoothly as the first. By two in the afternoon we were all loaded and our families were settled into their cabins on the boat. Sorting out who would occupy which cabin was a chore because we were only allotted four of them for twelve of us and the cabins were tiny. Curtis said he wanted to sleep near our animals to keep them from being frightened and, in the end, I decided to stay on the barge also. Ma shared a cabin with her grandsons, while Florence and Rachael shared one, and the three girls bunked together. That left Mister and Missus Colbert in a room by themselves for the first time since they met. Florence and Rachael being alone in the same cabin was a boon for me in that I would be able to share private moments with both of them in the evening after everyone else was abed. The crew of the Belle of Ohio pushed her away from the wharf with long poles at first light the following morning. Captain Pickett expertly steered a passage out of the mouth of the Yazoo and turned upstream on the broad, flat as glass, Mississippi. The mighty river was placid in advance of the flooding that usually followed the spring thaw, still a month in the future. Although Captain Pickett called the Belle a tow boat, we actually pushed the barge up river in front of us. The Captain explained that having the barge in front made it easier to control and kept it in his view at all times. The barge also would be the first thing to hit any obstructions in the river allowing Pickett time to save his boat. JC, Curtis and I all stayed with the livestock as we got underway. The horses were alarmed and skittish as the boat started moving but the mules, cow and calf took it in stride. Curtis was a wonder as he gentled the horses down with a soft sing-song voice. I was amazed at what a clear and sweet singing voice he had, and with the fact that he knew all the words to the hymns and other songs we sang around the camp fire at night. Never once had he joined in the singing, although he always tapped his toe in time with my fiddle and seemed to enjoy listening to the rest of us. It took an hour or so for the horses to acclimate to the swaying and lifting of the deck under their feet. After the plodding pace of our travels by wagon, the riverboat's progress was swift and smooth. Captain Pickett informed us that we were making a steady six knots against the river's current. "The Navy replaced our boilers in '62," he explained, "so we have a more powerful and efficient propulsion system than before." I developed a healthy respect for the Captain, Yankee though he was. He ran a tight ship and his six able seamen were well trained, courteous and efficient. Captain Pickett and my mother got on famously as they were both staunchly devout Baptists. We steamed up the river from first light till sunset then anchored near the shore for the night. Traveling on the Mississippi was exacting work for the crew because of constantly shifting sandbars and flotsam headed down stream. During the day a crew member stood on the front of the barge studying the water while Captain Pickett kept a sharp lookout from the elevated wheelhouse. Although we spent the night in anchorage, we still made seventy-five miles a day. The women in my family took over galley duty from the sailor who had been performing the chore. Captain Pickett and his crew were right happy about that. After a nice sit down meal on our first night aboard, I was proud as punch to promenade Flo and Rachael around the deck for our evening constitutional. I felt like some fancy rich boy with a beautiful woman on each arm. We were on our second stroll around the upper deck when I heard music coming from the fantail of the first deck. Rachael caught onto my interest right away. "Go get your fiddle, Sweet Baby, and show them Yankee boys how to play," she said with a grin. I did not need more prompting than that. I was off to the barge like a shot. I grabbed my fiddle and, for good measure, I pulled Curtis back onto the boat with me. I hastened to the rear of the boat and asked the four sailors sitting there fussing with their instruments if I could join them. Yankees or not, those old boys played pretty danged good. It took me a couple of numbers to catch on to the way they played together, but on the third number, off we went with Arkansas Traveler. Now Arkansas Traveler is a reel that you can play as fast as the musicians can go. Those sailors had been practicing for years so they were no slouches. Banjo, accordion, guitar and harmonica swung into the tune at double quick time thinking they would leave me floundering in their wake. Even a hillbilly like me saw that coming so I was puffed up like a Banty Rooster and ready to play. I think we were all surprised at how good we sounded. After that first song together the rivalry ceased out of mutual respect and the real music began. We were on our second piece together when the rest of the crew and my family showed up to enjoy the show. The arrival of my family led me to a hurried conference with my new band mates to find some songs we knew that my family could sing. Except for some popular Steven Foster numbers, all we had as a common singing repertoire were hymns. Never one to be shy, I started us off with Ma's favorite, What a Friend We Have in Jesus. We also did Rock of Ages and Nearer my Lord to Thee. As we were playing, I kept urging Curtis to sing with the family. He shyly looked down at his feet and shook his head until we played Amazing Grace. We had our only false start with that song as my new friends set a tempo faster than my family was accustomed. I set them straight and we started again. When I saw Curtis look up and nod his head I shushed everyone else and let him sing. Curtis squeezed his eyes shut and from his mouth came a sound songbirds would have envied. The accordion player, a big Irisher named McDougal, stopped playing and cross himself in goggle-eyed wonder. "Saints preserve us!" He exclaimed. "Tis an angel himself asinging." Ma reached over and took Curtis's hand as he sang, her eyes filling with tears. "For everything the good Lord takes away, he gives something back," she murmured softly. I think Curtis finding his singing voice is what finally helped Ma that final step past her heartbreak and sorrow. From them on, she saw Curtis as a precious gift bestowed by her Savior; she saw her purpose in life as to be protecting that gift. She again had something for which to live. We steamed into the bustling port of Saint Louis at three in the afternoon on Saturday, April 10, 1866. We had been on the water for five days. Captain Pickett made landfall at Saint Louis because he refused to work on the Sabbath. JC, two of the able seaman and I hustled off the boat to find hay and grain for our stock so we could depart at first light come Monday. Three of the fellows who played instruments in our impromptu band headed into town for racier entertainment than we could provide. As a result, only Mister McDougal and I were left to serenade the family. It was a wonder to me that Sean stayed on the boat instead of sampled the vices of Saint Louis given what I had heard about the Irish. We attended church with Captain Pickett Sunday morning at the Calvary Baptist Church. Pickett said he put in about once a month at Saint Louis and always attend the Sunday service here. Monday morning we shoved off again and steamed two miles up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Missouri River. The Missouri was wide and muddy but it was even more placid than the Mississippi. The Big Muddy also meandered all the heck over the map as it made its way across the 'Show Me State'. That tortuous meandering made the second leg of our trip almost as long as the first. We stopped Friday mid-afternoon just south of Saint Joseph. We spent the night on the river ten miles down stream instead of making port in the late afternoon. We all wanted one more beautiful night to enjoy each other's company in such nice accommodations. Captain Pickett and his crew readily agreed to our wishes; we had forged some strong friendships in an amazingly short amount of time. I was sad to be leaving my new musical partners and Florence was very sad about parting company with Sean McDougal. Yes, love had struck my sister-in-law Florence and the big Irishman as, somewhere between Curtis singing Amazing Grace and us playing Sally Goodin, some sort of magic passed between the pair. I was, of course, too dense to catch it, but Rachael clued me in about it later that night when we stole a few moments together. The next evening, Flo and I walked around the deck and discussed her and me. Flo took my hand in both of hers as we leaned against the prow railing. "Jeremiah, you have been wonderful to me and the boys this last year. Because of you, I can face the future and see something besides bitter old widowhood. I will forever love you for that, but meeting Mister McDougal showed me that love may again be in my future." Florence detaching herself from me was not a painful experience for me. I loved her, but it was a love that had more to do with family than the burning passion that Millie Sivestry inspired in me. I kissed her on the forehead and held her close as I softly voiced my understanding. We disembarked at a wharf in Saint Joe mid morning on Saturday, the 17th of April, 1866. We organized ourselves and moved out to settle in for the night in a big field outside of town that was the starting point of the Oregon Trail. We weren't the only wagons set up in that big field by a long shot as I counted twenty-two others looking to form a wagon train. I expected Florence to be sad that evening when we assembled our wagons and set up camp. As usual when it came to women, I was completely wrong. Instead, Florence was her usual bright and cheerful self. The reason Florence was not heartbroken became obvious even to me when we reached the First Baptist Church of Saint Joseph the next morning. Standing on the church steps, hat in his hand stood Sean McDougal. Next to Sean was a small elfin faced little girl in a blue gingham dress and white straw hat. The girl was adorably cute with her fiery red hair in pigtails and her face lavishly dusted with freckles. Florence stood up on the back of our wagon and Sean hurried over to hand her down to the ground. As we all stood there gape-jawed, Sean introduced us all to his daughter, Alice. She greeted us sweetly and politely and we all fell in love with the little angel on the spot. During the service, Sean, Florence and their children sat together as if they were already a family. I was still perplexed about the whole thing when Sean pulled me aside after the service, and after some hemming and hawing, asked me for Florence's hand in marriage. Now I liked Sean as a person but I did not think for a minute that being the wife of a man constantly gone from home was the best thing for Flo. I told Sean that and he rushed to tell me that if the family agreed, he and Alice wanted to move west with us. He had approached me about it first because Florence said I was the head of the family. The long and the short of it was that we held a family meeting that afternoon and unanimously agreed to bring the McDougal's with us. Sean and Alice joined us later that afternoon and within thirty minutes we all wondered what happed to the sweet girl we had met at church. Little Alice had a temper akin to that of a Grizzly Bear. The first to find that out was my nephew Joshua. Josh decided to tease Alice about her freckles and it took both me and her father to pull Alice off him. She gave him a good pummeling and a bloody nose, even though she was three inches shorter and ten pounds lighter. From that moment on there was hardly ever a dull moment when Alice was around. We did not leave Saint Joseph and Missouri until four days later, Thursday, April 22nd, 1866 to be exact. We stayed around Saint Joe because Sean needed time to purchase a wagon for his and Flo's family and we needed to stock up on dry goods and other provisions for the seven hundred mile trip to the far west end of the Nebraska Territory. We would be following the Oregon Trail all the way and there were a number of towns and forts along the way. However, we had been told that we would pay anywhere from two to four times an item's true value if we bought it on the trail. We had plenty of room for supplies and enough draft animals to pull the wagons so we stocked up in advance. JC and I helped Sean find a suitable wagon and we convinced him to purchase mules instead of oxen to pull it. Sean ended up as purchasing a well used but very serviceable farm wagon with a doubled cotton bonnet and four decent mules. JC sold our smallest wagon because it wasn't needed so we ended up with a couple of extra mules, and extra mules were never a bad thing. We talked Sean out of purchasing a Prairie Schooner because of the number of draft animals needed to pull one. We figured that we could get by with our smaller wagons because we weren't going all the way to Oregon so we didn't need as many provisions. Plus, except for the McDougals, we were all southern country folk so our needs were simple. It was an exciting time for us as we mounted our wagons or horses and pointed them towards the west that cool April morning. As usual, JC took the lead riding one of the horses and Anne and her girls led off in their wagon. Also as normal, Rachael, Carol and I took the last position in line. In between us and Anne, Curtis drove one wagon with Ma as his passenger while Sean drove the other with his family in tow. We expected our trip to be long and arduous but we were buoyed by the notion that our travails would be over in two months or less while the settlers forming the wagon train behind us had five or six months of travel in front of them. ------- Chapter 5 Our trip west following the Oregon Trail was more tedious and boring than it was dangerous or exciting as the route we followed was well established from over twenty years of westward migration. It was dotted with army posts and we were careful and experienced travelers, so our hardships were few. The only events of significance that interfered with our march were mostly weather related. It snowed on us a couple of times and we were forced to stop twice because heavy rains had made fording a creek inadvisable for a day or two. The Oregon Trail did not lead straight towards the northwest. Instead, it followed the easiest to travel route that generally headed in that direction. The route we actually followed was mostly through river valleys and flat stretches of featureless prairie between rivers. We cut across the northeast corner of Kansas following the Little Blue River on up to the southeastern corner of Nebraska. When we reached the south side of the Platte River we turned west and followed it until it reached the North Platte River. Three weeks travel found us deep in the Nebraska territory. From that point forward we stopped at the small towns that had sprung up along the trail looking for a place for us to settle. We were sorely disappointed at every stop. The vast, featureless prairie was bereft of trees and uninviting to us, as were the sod huts of the homesteaders, so we kept moving further westward. One of our few pleasant diversions along the way were the two occasions we encountered a huge herd of bison grazing directly in our line of march. The first time we ran up on a herd we were all in awe at the sight as buffalo stretched out before us in every direction as far as we could see. JC estimated that there were at least twenty thousand animals in the herd. The large shaggy creatures were magnificent to behold. More importantly, they represented an excellent source of fresh meat. I felled one of the beasts both times we encountered them with long range shots from my Enfield. We stopped for a day at the site of each kill to skin and butcher the buffalo. Butchering the bisons was a large task even with many hands doing the work. Ma was appalled at the amount of meat we had to bury beside the trail. I regretted it too, but we did not have the time or resources to properly cure or render the meat. Instead, we sliced off the best cuts and hung them from a rope we stretched between two wagons to bleed them out. Each of our kills provided us with a week's worth of nourishment. We turned the night of each encounter into a feast and celebration of our good fortune. We saw evidence along the trail that others did not feel the same respect for the buffalo that we did. At one point we had to actually turn and skirt around the site of a mass buffalo hunt. We were forced to turn from the horrible stench of scores of bloated dead and skinned buffalo right in our path. My mother actually cried at the senseless waste of food. Our only other excitement came when we were chanced upon by a party of twenty or so Red Indians four weeks after we departed Missouri. The Indians blocked our path and I was nervously preparing for a fight. JC calmed me somewhat by telling me they were probably not interested in a fight or they would have already attacked us. We halted our small convoy and JC nonchalantly rode out to powwow with the braves. JC could communicate with the savages in the sign language the Indians employed because of his service with the 2d Cavalry. I shooed the women and children into the wagons. I stood by with my Enfield at the ready and watched as JC and one of the Indians gesticulated back and forth. After a few minutes the red man handed JC something and JC in turn passed the brave the Spencer rifle from his scabbard and a double handful of cartridges from his saddlebag. The two men exchanged some sort of ritualistic grasping of the forearms then the braves wheeled their horses and thundered off with a great deal of whooping and yipping. JC sat motionless astride his mount until the Indians were well away from us before he turned around and cantered back to the wagons. "Those were Comanche, Jeb my boy, the fiercest of the redmen. If they can not find anyone else to fight they will wage war on each other. Because of their nature the tribe is relatively small and they roam from Canada to Mexico making it exceedingly rare to encounter them. They are on their way to count coup on a band of Kiowa about a days ride south of here. The War Chief saw my Spencer and wanted to trade. I did not have much choice about taking his deal, but it was a good one." The deal JC was forced to take was a fancy gold Elgin pocket watch on a beautifully wrought chain. It was about the nicest timepiece I had ever seen, even discounting the blood still staining the gold tasseled fob. The watch was easily worth four times the money the Spencer was worth, but the watch was a luxury we did not need while, as our experience with Pollard Cummins' hired killers proved, we probably needed every weapon and round of ammunition we had. Little Alice Coleen McDougal was also a cure for some of the tedium we experienced. Alice was not Joshua's eight years of age as I had thought. She was in fact, ten-years-old. She was smart as a whip and a tomboy of the first order. She had no interest in anything that Ruth, Rose or Carol fancied, even though they were all close to her in age. Alice was also a bundle of mischievous energy. We soon learned that it was best to keep her occupied lest she find some way to amuse herself. Alice and I became boon companions somehow and spent many an hour walking together or sitting together in the driver's seat of the wagon when it was my turn at driving. It was exceeding strange to me that she singled me out because, next to Curtis, I was the quietest person in the family and she was hands down the most talkative. Yet there we were, plodding along with her talking a mile a minute and peppering me with questions. Ma organized classes for the children that she taught in the back of the wagon that Curtis drove. She held classes for the girls in the morning for two hours and for the boys two hours in the afternoon. Curtis was included in the boy's class and enthusiastically participated. Ma had purchase a half dozen small wood framed slates and a few boxes of chalk before we left Saint Joseph on which the children and Curtis did their ciphering and scribing. The classes made the time go faster for the children and the trip a little less boring. It also kept them out of our hair for a few hours a day. We spent most of our evenings around a buffalo dung fire. We were all full of plans and ideas. Sean played his accordion and I sawed on my fiddle some as everyone else sang along. I spent my nights with sweet Rachael cocooned in blankets under our wagon as Carol slept inside it. We made a curtain of canvas for the sides that gave us our privacy. Rachael and I did not have a relationship of burning passion. We had love between us, but the love I felt for her was not of the intensity that I felt with Mille Silvestry. Fool that I was, I thought Rachael felt the same about me. I found out later that her feeling were much different. We continued moving west trying to find an alternative to the broad flat prairie. We finally found such a place when we passed out of Nebraska and into the Utah Territory in the area called Wyoming. We stopped at a trading post where the high plains butted into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in June of 1866 to lay in provisions and to rest our stock and ourselves. We had been traveling steadily for six weeks and had covered at least six hundred miles. On our first visit to the trading post, JC, Sean and I met General Grenville Dodge. Dodge was a gregarious fellow and as full of himself as an overstuffed goose. Dodge was in the area surveying the route of the much ballyhooed Transcontinental Railroad. JC and Dodge were kindred spirits and in minutes were yakking away as if they were long lost brothers. I left JC, Sean and Dodge in the trading post, with them having a drink and deeply absorbed in conversation. I did not want much to do with the former Union General once I found he had served under Sherman during the siege of Atlanta. JC was as excited as I'd ever seen him once he returned to our camp. He pulled me aside for a talk straight away. "Jeb, from what the General was telling me, this might be the place we have been seeking. He told me of a low mountain valley north of here with forests, creeks, meadows and even a few lakes. The valley is unsettled because most of the territory is open ranch land and most of the settlers here run cattle for a living. The valley is too heavily forested for cattle ranching but it would be perfect for raising horses and mules. We can each file a claim to a section (six hundred and forty acres) for a hundred dollar fee. I figure that if we like the place, Sean, you and I can file for adjoining sections. Even Curtis might be able to file a claim. Dodge told me that the railroad was coming right through here in a year or so and that he had already commenced surveying a town on this very spot. He figures that soon people will be flocking here because of the railroad." As I said, I did not share JC's enthusiasm for Dodge so it was harder for me to believe even a small part of his pronouncements. However, I was not about to dismiss what JC told me out of hand. For one thing, JC had an uncanny knack in finding good deals; for another, if this area did boom with the arrival of the railroad, my dream of a freight business could become reality. "I have my doubts about the General's veracity, JC, but I'm willing to look at the land he mentioned. If it is suitable for us, we can show it to the family and see what they think," I said noncommittally. Dodge magnanimously escorted us to the valley the next morning. It was located about ten miles from the trading post and I was exceedingly surprised when it turned out to be everything he described. As we rode through the valley beside the snow melt swollen, burbling creek, I could envision the family living here quite easily. As I explored on my own, JC, Sean and Dodge were in a serious discussion about the money to be made if Dodge's prediction of a boom in the area occurred. Discussions about money and becoming rich did not interest me. Sure, I wanted to be comfortable, but, more than that, I wanted my family and me to be happy and at peace for a change. JC and I loaded the family up in a couple of wagons the next day and took them to the tranquil little valley. It was love at first sight for the women so we started making plans right there by the creek. Ma, Anne, Rachael and Florence were ecstatic about the spot and were happily planning on where our houses would be as we ate the picnic lunch they had prepared earlier. I was perfectly content to sit and watch as everyone else made plans. It was not that I did not care; I simply had nothing to contribute. I could not think of a single thing I could add at this point. I was alive, healthy and surrounded by those I loved. I even managed to drag a nice collection of books out here with me. That was plenty enough for me. We moved our camp up hill about fifty feet from the creek's high watermark the next day and set about building a house. The plan called for there to be three houses eventually, but for now we needed to concentrate on one so we would have a place to survive the winter. We also needed a barn and fenced enclosure for the livestock and ma wanted a garden tilled for her to plant yesterday. Ma had brought vegetable seeds, seed corn and even some nuts to plant. She had the idea of transforming our place into a small slice of Georgia, complete with Hickory and Black Walnut trees. One thing we weren't lacking was building materials. We had a thriving evergreen forest for lumber and all the stone we could ever use. The local stone was perfect for building because pieces flat on the top and bottom were commonplace and the stone was easy to shape with only a peening hammer and cold chisel. We dug a foundation about a foot wide and a foot deep and started carefully dry stacking the stones we had been gathering and shaping. Curtis and I fetched and squared the ends of the stones while JC and Sean fitted them together in the foundation trench. We had an ambitious plan to build a house twenty feet wide and forty feet long so we needed plenty of stone just for the foundation. Also, because we did not have mortar to bond the stones together, we had to spend considerable time fitting and leveling as we went. Sean had built a couple of houses previously so he took charge of our building efforts. JC had been involved in constructing army forts and fortifications so he had some construction experience as well. I knew beans about any of it, but I was young, strong and willing so I pulled my share of the load. Building the house was a family affair as the women and children pitched in enthusiastically. We finished the foundation in five days. Curtis, Alice and I went into the forest on that fifth day and started felling tress for the exterior walls. While we were looking for and cutting long, straight, eight inch diameter logs, JC and Sean finished the foundation and helped Ma and the other ladies level and pack the dirt floor. Curtis and I dropped the trees with a big two-man crosscut saw then the three of us used axes and hatchets to clean the tree of limbs and bark. When three logs were ready I would hook them to the pair of mules we had with us and Alice would walk them back to the creek. We averaged about four trees an hour that way. It wasn't a torrid pace by any means, but the logs we were sending were all thirty to forty feet long and every inch of them was usable. We had been building for seven days and were resting on the Sabbath when we received our first visitors and met our first neighbors. It was about two in the afternoon and we were all sitting in the shade of one of the big wagons discussing how large to make the barn when a young man not much older than I, two women about the same age, two toddlers and a swaddled baby rolling up in a farm wagon. The women in our family were especially happy to meet the two younger women and dragged them and their children off straight away. The young man, Abraham Tellers, walked over to our home site and took an appraising look around. "You have made a good start but you still have much to do," he commented. JC asked him what exactly needed to be done past what we had planned. He asked the right man, because Abraham was a wealth of information. Abraham's father had been a woodwright and Abraham had learned enough from him to become a competent carpenter and sawyer. With Abraham's guidance, we installed an interior load bearing wall that let us add a loft for the children to sleep in. The loft was built over the three bedrooms that were at the back of the house. Even better, Abraham offered to help and opined that the owners of the other two spreads near us would be happy to lend us a hand also. Abraham and his family stayed for dinner and we all got along famously. We men folk were sitting around in the shade of the canvass we strung between the two big wagons while the women and children were down by the creek. Abraham answered a question I'd been thinking when he said his wives and ours seemed to be getting along famously. I was set to ask him why he had two wives when JC answered for him. "They are Mormonites, Jeremiah," he said, as if that explained everything. Abraham saw my quizzical look and explained further. "We are followers of the Prophet Joseph Smith and we are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We follow the example set by the prophets in the Old Testament such as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who each had more than one wife. My wives, Sarah and Mary are sisters who wanted to stay together as family and, since I loved them both, I married both of them." I nodded my understanding of what he said and expressed an interest in knowing more about his beliefs. Abraham laughed and clapped me on the back. "I will see to it you learn more Jeremiah. After all, every Latter Day Saint is a missionary. But I warn you, plural marriage is only a small part of our teaching and a flimsy excuse to join us." I felt my skin flush red hot in embarrassment and stammered out that I only wanted to learn more about his religion, not find an excuse for more than one wife. Abraham laughed and said he had understood me the first time and was only teasing me. I thought my mother might take exception to the Tellers' beliefs, but that was not the case at all. "They are Christians, Jeremiah," she told me later, "and they worship the same Savior I hold in my heart. As far as I'm concerned, anything else matters not a whit." Abraham showed up a couple of days later with two older men he introduced as our other neighbors Caleb Johnson and Joseph Barton. The back of the wagon the three men were riding in was filled with tools and the men certainly knew how to use them. Caleb latched onto Sean and began teaching him how to split shakes from eighteen inch long pieces of Mountain Juniper Tree. Abraham took Sean's place setting logs on the walls and Joseph went with Curtis and me to fell more trees. Joseph was also an Elder in the church. While we worked he talked to me about the Book of Mormon, the Prophet Joseph Smith and the man whose vision moved the church to Utah, Brigham Young. Brother Smith accepted the fact that I wanted to know more out of curiosity not from a desire to convert. Our neighbors showed up two days a week for the next month. In that time we finished and moved into the house, fashioned some rough but serviceable furniture and completed the walls and roof of the barn. We threw a cookout on the Saturday following the roof going on the barn for our neighbors and their families to show our appreciation for their help. They accepted our invitation but they refused to accept any money for the work they did. Instead, they extracted a promise from us to help them next time they were building anything. We gladly agreed to that. Throughout the summer, JC and Sean went to the trading post every two weeks to meet with Grenville Dodge. I was invited but I had absolutely no interest in their plans to establish a town here. It was enough for me that there would be a railroad station and an opportunity to haul freight. Dodge saw immediately that JC was just the man to ride herd on establishing the town. By the end of the summer the town of Cheyenne, Wyoming was surveyed and laid out. Dodge laid out the town so that the Union Pacific Railroad tracks formed the southern border. Our homesteads were seven miles northwest of the proposed location of the railroad's station house. The rest of the summer passed rapidly. We had much to do to prepare for our first Rocky Mountain high plains winter but with everyone pitching in we settled in for the cold in excellent shape. We had a smoke house full of meat, plenty of game to hunt, a root cellar full of fruits and vegetables and a pantry laden with paraffin sealed jars of preserved vegetables. Ma and the wives of our neighbors traded their specialties back and forth and we still had dry goods we had brought west with us. Our house was snug as a bug in a rug with the log walls chinked inside and out to keep out the wind and leave in the heat. The windows of the house did not have glass in them yet, but we had tightly fitted shutters both inside and out. We had plenty of fire wood, cut, split and stacked near the back of the house. The barn and corral were completed and we had laid in quite a bit of hay for the animals. In late August, General Dodge came out and surveyed our land claims. Afterward, he and JC rode down to Denver to file them with the territorial government. With Dodge along, JC had nary a problem filing the four claims. While they were in Denver, JC and Dodge filed the paperwork for the incorporation of Cheyenne. The plat was approved and JC and Dodge were given the deed to the nine sections of land (one six hundred and forty acre section equals one square mile) that made up the proposed town. JC and Dodge were equal partners in the land. It was a good deal for Dodge, as he would receive one half of the proceeds from any land sales or improvements without lifting a finger, and he hadn't spent a dime on the entire project. It was an even better deal for JC because within two years he was one of the richest and most powerful men in Wyoming. We had a beautiful autumn complete with nine gorgeous days of Indian summer after our first frost in mid October. The arrival of cold weather gave us time to rest and catch up with ourselves. Unfortunately, it also heralded the arrival of my problems. My problems started about the time I felt comfortable about the future of my extended family for the first time in over five years. Without them to worry about, I started to examine my own life and consider my happiness for a change. Try as I might, I could not think of a thing I wanted to do beyond having a small freight business. Even worse, my mind was a complete blank when I tried to think of something I wanted to accomplish personally. I did not want a wife and the thought of children scared me to death. I started feeling guilty that I was having my way with Rachael without a thought of marrying her. Rachael was a wonderful woman and she deserved a chance to start another family. Even though she insisted that she was fine with the relationship we had, I firmly believed that I was holding her back. I began to fret that my lack of ambition coupled with my contentment with playing my fiddle and reading, made me pretty much of a no account. I was the high plains Nero, fiddling while all around me people burned with ambition. That feeling was exacerbated when I listened to JC, Sean and the women speak of all their plans for the future. Even my mother, now in her early sixties, talked about opening up a school for the children of the new neighbors we were expecting. I became even quieter and more withdrawn as November came and the first snow fell. I started spending most every day in the forest hunting and thinking. I was much more successful at hunting than I was at reaching conclusions. Ma and Rachael sat me down near the middle of November and expressed the family's concern about me. It embarrassed me that I was causing the family to worry and it also irritated me that anyone thought it was any of their business. I didn't give a hint of either emotion though and stoically heard them out. Instead, I told them I was just in the doldrums because of the winter but that other than that I was fine. Ma said she thought I was suffering because the war had caused me to miss being young. I shrugged off that idea and repeated that I was fine. As I arose from my chair at the end of our little meeting, I decided that I was not going to stick around and inflict my unpleasant self on my family any longer. Over the next week I was even more withdrawn and uncommunicative. I even moved out of the house and started sleeping in the barn. I secretly assembled those things I would need when I left and hid them in the barn. I wasn't taking all that much. I packed my fiddle, the folio of music, one pistol, my Enfield, A Spencer Carbine with fifty cartridges and one hundred dollars in gold and silver coins. I made myself a nice winter bedroll with a couple of blankets and one of our buffalo hides. I wrapped the bedroll in a six feet by six feet piece of canvas oil cloth and secured it with a twelve foot long piece of rope. From the kitchen, I took a frying pan and a small stew pot. I would purchase my provisions at the trading post as I passed by it. I did not have a specific destination in mind other than heading south. I did not slip away from home this time as I had when I left to join the Army. Instead, on the morning of my twenty-first birthday, November 29, 1866, I announced that I was leaving for a while as we sat at the table eating breakfast. My announcement did not surprise any of the adults and of the children, only Alice was affected in any measurable way. While my plan to leave did not surprise anyone, everyone at the table opposed it and tried to talk me into staying. I was resolute though, and thirty minutes later I rode Zeke out of the barn leading a second mule loaded with my pack. Everyone was standing on the porch as I walked by the house. Ma, Rachael and Alice were crying as I said goodbye. I promised I would return then rode off without a backwards glance. ------- Chapter 6 I did not have a destination in mind when I left the homestead in Wyoming on my birthday, but I did have a direction. I was headed south. I chose to go in that direction on a whim. I could have as easily picked any other point of the compass. I rode some and walked a little during the day and at night I slept under a lean-to tent I made out of the oil cloth. I slept warm and cozy wrapped in my buffalo hide. The weather was cold but tolerable with not much in the way of snow. I kept up a good pace and made it to Fort Collins, Colorado in only four days. Fort Collins looked as if it were an interesting place, so I liveried my horse and mule and took a look around. My first stop was the sheriff's office. I was looking to see if the sheriff would secure some of my weapons for me. The sheriff was in conversation with a man whose back was to me, so I politely waited until they finished talking. The man talking to the sheriff was angry, but was holding himself in check with great effort. From the snippets of conversation I heard, the man was some sort of Wells Fargo agent investigating a stagecoach robbery. The man's voice sounded familiar to me but I couldn't place where I knew it from. The man finished his conversation and turned around. Both of us were startled when we recognized the other. His name was Grady Miller. He was once Major Grady Miller, and for a year he was commander of the headquarters battalion of the Army of Northern Virginia and my commanding officer. Miller's face broke into a smile and he stuck out his hand. I had a passing acquaintance with Miller, but he was one of the real officers I tried to avoid when I served with Lee's headquarters. "Lieutenant Brock, what an unexpected pleasure. Where's that horse thief Colbert? I'm not used to seeing one of you without the other." "Likewise Major," I replied. "I'll tell you all about it over a drink as soon as I ask the sheriff for a favor." The sheriff was more than happy to have two less guns in town and even suggested holding onto my Colt for me. I thanked him kindly for the offer but demurred. I wasn't about to go about unarmed. Miller and I retired to a dim and smoky saloon and over bad rotgut whisky caught each other up on our lives since the war. Miller was a Colorado native and had been able to return to the same job with Wells Fargo the he had held before the war. He was nominally assigned to the company's Denver office but he was often out on the road keeping the stage coach line running smoothly. He was in Fort Collins because one of the company's coaches had disappeared. The coach, passengers, crew, horses and strong box had vanished without a trace. Miller suspected an inside job because that particular coach was carrying five thousand dollars in newly minted gold coins destined for the army garrison in Sidney, Nebraska. I ended up becoming an employee of the Wells Fargo company before another hour had passed. I can not recall how Grady Miller managed to slip me working for him into the conversation or why I accepted. It was a whilom point by then though, as Grady led me down to the Wells Fargo office to introduce me around. Wells Fargo had a good-sized operation in Fort Collins. Besides banking, assaying and stage coach offices, they had a stable, a coach barn, and a bunk house for the drivers, guards and dispatch riders. Miller explained that Fort Collins was the clearing house for silver and gold ore mined in the mountains just to the west. Wells Fargo was under contract with the Denver mint to assay, store and transport bullion down to Denver. They also were the sole supplier for security and transportation for finished coinage. Before I could say it, I was a stagecoach driver and guard. The station manager for the stage coach operation did not waste any time putting me to work. He issued me a duck cloth duster, a regular cotton duster, a double barreled shotgun with a sixteen inch barrel and a bandolier with thirty brass shotgun shells, then led me to the bunkhouse to meet the other drivers and guards. The men I met were a hard and coarse bunch. I thought it just my luck that I was teamed up to the hardest and coarsest of them for my first run. My new partner was a wiry, wizened little fellow named Bob Randolph. He looked as ornery as a snake and cursed a blue streak. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, however, and stuck out my hand to shake his. "My name is Jeb, pleased to meet you," I said, real friendly like. He looked at my hand, spit a big steam of tobacco juice onto the floor and proceeded to tell the station manager that he was too old to nursemaid some big stupid plowboy. Except Randolph used language that would have made a sailor blush. I spent four years in the army and had sailed for ten days on a river boat and I had still never heard anyone who could even come close to cussing like Bob. I took about twenty seconds of his harangue then reached down, grabbed him by the collar with my right hand and lifted him off his feet until we were nose to nose. He went for his gun and I clamped onto his wrist with my left hand. I was a big man and a summer of hard work had made me as strong as an ox. "Do you kiss your mother with that filthy mouth?" I asked softly. Randolph gave me a crooked grin and patted me on the shoulder. "All right son, you will do. Now put me down and we will repair to the saloon for some liquid refreshments." I did not lower him an inch. Instead, I looked at him quizzically. "It was a test, Jeremiah. I had to know how you handled yourself before I climbed up on that driver's box with my life depending on you tomorrow." I sat him down still looking at him funny. He was testing me? That seemed strange given that I was a foot taller, eighty pounds heavier and a seasoned veteran of the greatest army ever assembled. I also wondered where his profane and vulgar speech went because his last two utterances were in the cultured and refined manner I associated with Lenora Quiller and her well to do friends in Richmond. I followed my new partner to a saloon called Dead Eyed Dick's to find some answers. The saloon was thick with smoke, both wood and tobacco, and it was loud and raucous. My mother would have had a conniption fit had she known I was already in my second saloon on my first day in town. Miners were jostling with cowboys over the affections of a few bored looking fallen doves as a man in a bowler hat clanged discordant notes on the keys of a battered upright piano. I was trying to look everywhere at once because it was my first venture into the world that JC used to inhabit. Bob chuckled and led me to the bar. "Innkeeper, a flagon of your most quaffable elixir for my young friend and me," Bob said regally. The harried looking barman raised his eyebrows, gave Bob a mock salute and pulled a bottle off the shelf behind him. He put the bottle on the bar between Bob and me then produced two lead crystal glasses with a flourish while still keeping one hand firmly on the bottle of whiskey. "There you go professor," the barman said, "that will be six bits silver." Bob made a production out of checking his pockets for money then shrugged and turned to me. "I seem to be temporarily without funds, Jeremiah. If you will stand for our libations, I will take care of our next visit." I plunked a dollar down on the bar. As soon as the barman reached for the money, Bob snatched up the bottle and pulled the cork stopper with his teeth. He poured me a small shot of the whiskey then turned the bottle up and drank a quarter of it in one continuous gulp. I sat and nursed my shot of rotgut rye as I quizzed Bob about his past. He had not been a college professor. Instead, he was a lawyer back in his native Philadelphia before running afoul of his social class by seducing the wife of one of his wealthy clients. His vindictive client had ruined him financially and socially. Bob left Philadelphia a bitter and broken man and headed west to strike it rich in the California Gold Rush of 1848. He prospected unsuccessfully for three years before taking a job with Wells Fargo. He had been drifting around the west from Texas to Oregon for the last fifteen years. I was enthralled by his story. "What would you do differently, if you could relive your life?" I asked. He grinned and took another healthy swig from the almost empty bottle. "Not a damned thing!" he replied emphatically. Bob woke me up the next morning at five. He was cheerful and bore no signs of being hung-over despite the quart of whiskey he had consumed the night before. I dressed warmly and followed him out to the stable. Bob picked four horses and we harnessed them. The Wells Fargo tack was high quality and in excellent repair. We led the horses to the carriage house and hooked them to the stage coach's double tree tongue. The coach was in even better repair than the tack. It was bright red with Wells Fargo & Co. lettered in gold leaf on both sides and the back. We climbed up into the driver's box, Bob took the reins, and we drove over to the Wells Fargo offices. We swung by the sheriff's office to pick up my rifles and were sitting in the front of the stage coach office at six on the dot. I hopped down off the box to help the three passengers waiting on the porch with their baggage. I piled their bags onto the boot shelf at the rear of the coach and lashed them securely with a rope. The passengers mounted the cab of the coach as Bob and I went into the bank to retrieve the strongbox we were delivering to Denver. Bob lifted one end of the box with a grunt while I took the other. The box was heavy for its size; it probably weighed a hundred pounds. Its steel construction and hefty lock still did not account for its weight. Bob frowned but did not say anything to the two bank guards or the teller as we walked out. I hefted the strongbox over the lip of the driver's box and set it in the foot well on the passenger side. Bob clucked the horses into motion at exactly six-ten and we headed south for the two day trip to Denver. Bob schooled me on my duties as we rode. He explained that, in the vernacular of Wells Fargo & Company, we were called express messengers, a name given us because we also carried mail. We would share driving duties; the man not driving was commonly called the shotgun messenger. Our first duty was to insure the safety of our passengers while our second was to safeguard our cargo. In our case that was the sack of mail and strongbox we carried. Mention of the strongbox made Bob frown again. "That strongbox is the heaviest I have ever transported. A most worrisome fact coming on the heels of Cottonwood Joe and his coach disappearing last week," he said. I agreed and asked why more guards were not riding with us. He replied, "Not every coach carries a strongbox worth stealing, so extra guards only identify those that do and invite an attack. Until last week, it was not a problem." I was extra vigilant because of Bob's concerns but our day was uneventful. We changed teams at a way station six hours after our departure. All Wells Fargo routes were laid out in that manner. Some of the stations were company trading posts set along the road, while others were private farms or stables. At most of the stops you could buy a meal and a drink if you were so inclined. Way station stops were generally thirty minutes or less. I took the reins when we departed the way station. The difference between driving the coach, as opposed to driving a freight wagon as I was accustomed, was the pace we set. The horses pulling the coach were only in harness for six hours at a stretch and they were trained to move at a lively canter. As a result, we could cover about fifty to sixty miles a day over smooth terrain. It only took me a few minutes to find my rhythm as I allowed the horses to set their own pace. We rolled into Boulder at four in the afternoon; our trip uneventful so far. We unloaded our passengers and their bags in front of a hotel near the Wells Fargo station. Bob admonished them to be on time in the morning because he was pulling out at six ten precisely. We wrestled the heavy strong box into the office and placed it into the big Diebold vault before taking the horses and coach to the stables. We unhitched the team and passed the tack to the stable hand. As soon as the man led the horses away to their stalls, Bob grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the stable. "Come lad," he urged, "for your education has just begun." Bob led the way down the wooden sidewalk to a building on the edge of town. A small sign above the frosted glass door announced that we were about to enter Madame Devereaux's Gentlemen's Emporium. Before we entered the door, Bob gave me an embarrassed smile and held out his hand palm up. "I loathe asking you for money, Jeremiah, but you have my sacred oath that I will return your largesse on payday." I sigh and fished a five dollar gold piece out of my poke and dropped it into his palm. Bob's tentative smile grew much larger. "Most excellent, my lad. For your generosity, I will insure that you have a marvelous evening." Inside the door we were met by a large, robust woman with a great mass of dark red hair piled atop her head. The woman was every bit as large as me. She squealed in a surprisingly girlish voice when she saw Bob and pulled him against her bountiful bosom in a smothering embrace. "Robert, Mon Cherie," she gushed. I looked back and forth between them as they twittered away in what I assumed was French. Bob finally remember I was there and introduced us. "Camille, may I introduce my associate, Mister Jeremiah Brock. Jeremiah, this ravishing creature is Miss Camille Devereaux." Camille was dress in a voluminous shiny green gown of an oriental design. It must have taken half the silkworms in China a month to produce that much material. Not to be outdone by the loquacious Mister Randolph, I took Camille's hand in mine and brought it to my lips. "Charmed, I am sure," said suave and debonair Jeremiah. "Another well bred gentleman," Camille remarked in accented English. "We see very few of those here." Camille put her finger beside her nose and squinted cutely as she seemed to be deep in thought. She suddenly smiled as if she had a revelation. "I think I have the perfect companion for you, Mister Brock," she gushed. The perfect companion of whom she spoke was a blonde woman of medium height. She was nowhere near as well upholstered as Camille, but she was far from waifish. Her name was Colette. She smiled when I did the hand kiss trick again, then took my arm and led me down a hallway. This was my first ever visit to a bawdy house so I did not know what to expect. Still when she ushered me into a room whose only adornment was a large bathtub, I was flummoxed. "You bath awaits, Mister Brock," she said in her throaty French accent, and then she twirled around and departed. I mentally shrugged then quickly stripped and settled into the tepid water. A bath after five days on the road suited me just fine. I was lathering up my face with some perfumed soap when Colette reappeared with a bucket of steaming water. She smiled demurely as I scrambled to cover my privates, then poured the hot water into the tub. As she left, she took my shirt and trousers with her. Colette returned ten minutes later with my clothes. They had been brushed clean and sprinkled with scented talcum powder. She left my folded clothes on the floor and headed for the door. I hurriedly dressed and walked back into the hallway. Colette favored me with another radiant smile. "Better," she said as she slipped her arm through mine. She led me down to the other end of the hall and opened yet another door. Instead of a bedroom as I had expected, it was a cozy dining room. Bob and Camille were already seated at the table. Bob had cleaned up nicely, as even his grey stubble of a beard was gone. As soon as I sat down, Colette served us all from dishes that were sitting on the sideboard. The meal was chicken in some sort of white gravy, along with a few vegetables, bread and cheese. The food was excellent, what little there was of it. I could have eaten about three more servings. I was half way expecting it when we retired to a room that was outfitted as a parlor. It was furnished with two couches facing each other across a low table. The women fetched us brandy and cigars, my first experience with either. I followed Bob's lead by firing up a cigar and sipping the brandy. The women perched themselves on the couches next to us. Bob, Camille and Colette started conversing about Shakespeare's historical plays, so I took the time to look around the room. The first thing I saw was a violin sitting on a music stand in the corner. I stood up and walked over to it, Colette artfully draped on my arm. It was a very fine instrument, I could tell that right off. It was used mostly for decoration, I would wager, as the hair on the bow was not frazzled at all. Camille and Bob were looking at me curiously, their conversation abated. "May I?" I asked Camille. She nodded affirmatively so I picked up the violin and bow. I adjusted the screw on the bow stick until the hair was taut and tried a note or two. It took me a few minutes to tune the strings, but I took the time an instrument that fine demanded. Once I was in tune, curiosity made me glance down at the sheet of music on the stand. Amazingly, it was Mozart's Sonata in C for Violin, a piece that I happened to have in the collection JC brought me. I had spent many an hour mastering that piece because its performance required some dexterity. I unfolded the sheet of music, tucked the violin under my chin, held the frog of the bow as I had been taught and let fly. I sounded pretty darned good, if I have to say so myself. I think it was a combination of the situation and that wonderful instrument that made me better than usual. Camille and Bob were suitably impressed, while Colette positively glowed. I left well enough alone after the sonata and carefully put the music and violin back where I found them. Camille asked for another tune, but I refused. "Maybe next time," I told her. We finished our cigars and brandy; Bob stood up and I followed suit. I figured now that the preliminaries were over, we would get to the true purpose of a trip to a brothel. I don't mind telling you that the prospect did not put me off my feed a whit as Miss Colette's plentitude of curves was most enticing. You can imagine my surprise when, instead of showing us their bedrooms, the women showed us to the front door. I stood there confused as Camille closed the door in our faces. Bob chuckled and steered me out onto the street. "What just happened?" I asked perplexedly. Bob laughed and clapped me on the back and said, "We just spent two enchanting hours with a pair of lovely women. Madame Devereaux is a respectable woman; she entertains gentlemen only in a social setting. For two dollars and a half we had a nice bath, a gourmet meal and fine conversation. What more could a man want?" I allowed that it had been a nice evening, but that I could think of a number of things I still wanted. Bob grinned and said that I was in luck because Miss Colette had taken a shine to me and we were both invited back after ten o'clock for a nightcap. We did go back at ten and Colette showed me how happy she was to see me. Before Colette, the most substantial woman I had been with was Lenora Quiller. Lenora was a very good lover but she was older and preferred slow, gentle lovemaking. Colette, on the other hand, was young, strong and energetic. She was also loud and lusty. Colette left no doubts about what she liked as she screamed her release. Not only that, but somewhere during the course of our love making her accent disappeared. As we lay catching our breath after our first vigorous joining, her head on my shoulder, her leg thrown casually over mine, Colette cooed in my ear. "As soon as you picked up that violin tonight, all I could think of was your hands on me. I somehow knew you would play me with the same skill, but I did not count on your lips and tongue being just as talented." I smiled down at her and palmed one of her fulsome breasts. "You inspire me, Colette," I said sincerely. I was being completely honest because the more time I spent with her, the higher my desire soared. Our second time was even better than the first; it was just as athletic but not as urgent. We spent more time savoring each other. We stayed up all night pleasuring each other. In between bouts we shared details of our lives. I was not that surprised when Colette told me her name was really Wanda Jean Turner from Saint Louis. She was no more French than my mule Zeke. Camille had recruited her two years ago and had probably saved her from a life as a prostitute. I was amazed that she was only eighteen years old. She was the youngest woman with whom I had been intimate. I reluctantly left Madam Devereaux's at five-thirty the next morning. Colette did not have to work very hard to convince me to come back to see her. Bob had a hearty laugh at my expense when I made it to the stables to help him harness our morning team. "I suspect I need not ask you if you enjoyed your evening," he teased. I suspect he was correct. We moved out again at six o'clock exactly. Bob was a stickler for being on time. Bob was driving the morning shift again. He drove from the left side of the driver's box so that my right side was unobstructed. I rode with my shotgun across my knees; my Enfield was in the scabbard attached to the side of the driver's box and my Spencer carbine was in the foot well. I was not tired in the least from being up all night with Colette, in fact the experience had energized me. I was feeling too good to be tired. As we rode, Bob educated me on the subject of Madame Camille Devereaux. Camille actually was French in a manner; she was French Creole from New Orleans. Although Bob was not certain, he thought that she might have once been a lady of the evening in Denver. Camille hit on the idea of an establishment that catered to men seeking some womanly companionship with no sex involved and started Madam Devereaux's with just herself and one other woman. The concept was a bigger success than she had imagined to the point that she now had eight other women working for her. Bob said that he and Camille were in love and might eventually get married. "You are a lucky man," I said, "because she is a lot of woman." Bob rolled his eyes heavenward. "Amen," he said reverently. Bob was still waxing poetic about Camille abundant charms as we were clopping down grade in a dry stream bed. He was in the midst of extolling the benefits her voluptuous form when three masked men appeared in the middle of the road right after we had rounded a sharp bend. Two men had rifles trained on us while the other held a pistol in one hand and had the other raised as a signal for us to stop. Bob was reflexively starting to pull back on the reins. "If you stop we are dead!" I bellowed. ------- Chapter 7 One of the men with a rifle was to my right and clearly visible, without giving it a thought I swung the shotgun a few inches, thumbed back the rabbit-ear hammers and pulled both triggers at once. At twenty-five yards enough of the double-ought pellets hit my target to send him flying through the air backwards. The loud report of the shotgun spooked the coach's horses and they leapt forward against their collars and breast straps. The sudden surge of forward movement threw me back against the seat just as I was reaching down to pick up Bob's scatter gun. That jerky movement probably saved my life as a split second later a bullet splintered the back of driver's box smack-dab between Bob and me. I frantically reached down and grabbed the other shotgun cocking the hammers as I pulled it off the floor. I swung the shotgun around so it was pointed in the direction of the man with the pistol. I didn't worry about the rifleman because I knew it would take him at least twenty seconds to reload the Springfield he carried. By the time I had my head up ready to shoot, we were close enough to the pistol wielder that the horses were in my line of sight. Bob had urged the horse on after their scared initial leap with the intent of running the man down. The man jumped to the side at the last second and we thundered by him, the horses now at full gallop. I took the opportunity afford by no one being in front of us to break open my shotgun, shake out the two spent cartridges and stuff two new ones into the breech. Bob was Jehu driving the devil out of that big top heavy stagecoach just keeping it on its wheels. He cut me a quick glance as he pulled back some on the reins to slow for a curve. "Any suggestions, Jeremiah, because we sure cannot out run them," Bob stated calmly. "Try to find us a place where we can hold them off for a while. I'll try to buy us some time while you look, then we will see how many of them are willing to die for that strong box," I replied. Bob grinned evilly and nodded his head in understanding. I turned around and knelt on the seat so I could see behind us. The view was not a pleasant one as six riders were thundering up the road about one hundred yards behind us. I watched them for a few seconds to see if they would stay in a column of twos as they were or if they would spread out. When I saw them staying in a column even when they had room to ride abreast, I reached for my Enfield. I stretched out over the roof of the jouncing coach, plugged a percussion cap into the already loaded rifle, cocked the hammer and waited. There was no way I could acquire a clear sight picture with the coach bouncing and swaying. I did not need to make a difficult shot because my target was the middle horse in the right hand column but I would need to be somewhat steady nonetheless. "Holler when you start to make a left hand curve, Bob," I said loudly. Bob grunted in reply. I tried to relax, breath normally and look over the top of my sights as I waited. Bob finally yell, "Here it comes," about thirty seconds later. The coach went into the curve and leaned hard to the right. That lean cause the ride to smooth out for a couple of seconds and that was long enough for me to aim and fire. I targeted the middle horse because I hoped if I missed him I might hit one of the others. I did not miss. The big 58 caliber slug tore into the horse's chest with enough force to turn him slightly sideways before he faltered and flipped end for end. His rider rolled with him, his off foot caught in the stirrup. As a bonus for us, the horse following them collided with the downed horse and tumbled also. The rider of that horse managed to jump clear of the carnage. I disliked the idea of killing the horses. I did it because I disliked the idea of dying in their place even more. I had hoped that the entire gang would stop to help their downed comrades. That did not happen; instead, the last rider in the left column reined in his horse and turned back. The other three simply spread out, and kept coming. I sighed and was reaching for my Spencer when Bob started whoaing on the reins and pressing his foot hard against the brake lever. When I looked at him, he inclined his head at some large boulders that had avalanched down a steep hillside and ended up at rest only a few yards from the road. Some of the rocks were close enough together to provide cover from the front and flanks. Bob managed to stop the coach near the rocks. He locked the brake lever in place and looped the reins over it before jumping out of the driver's box. Bob yanked the door of the coach open and hustled our frightened passengers out of the coach and into the rocks. Our passengers were a middle-aged couple and an elderly woman. The man was unarmed but accepted one of the shotguns when Bob thrust it into his hands. Our pursuers stopped when we did. They dismounted and conferred for a few seconds, and then one of them took the horses and led them off the trail disappearing in a gully. The other two men started climbing the hill where the incline was gentler. I tried to dissuade them from that idea with a couple of shots from my Spencer. The men were about two hundred and fifty yards away, a distance past the effective range of the short carbine. Still my shots were close enough to make them dive for cover. While the two men had their heads down, I heaved the strongbox out of the foot well and onto the ground near the rocks Bob was hiding behind. I made sure Bob was covering me, grabbed my Spencer, Enfield and saddlebags then clambered to the ground. I handed my Spencer to Bob as soon as I scrambled behind the large rock he was peeking around. With my back against the rock I ripped open a paper cartridge of powder and poured it down the barrel of my Enfield. Next, I inserted a minie ball in the muzzle and rammed it home. Once I pushed a percussion cap into place I leaned the Enfield against the rock and looked at our frightened passengers. I tried to reassure them by saying that the Denver Wells Fargo office would send help for us if we did not arrive there on time. All we had to do was hold out for two or three more hours. That was a crock of buttermilk of course, but it seemed to calm them somewhat. I put all three of them watching the hillside so we didn't get flanked then peeked around the rock on the opposite side from Bob. If one of the robbers showed himself now, I had a 58 caliber surprise for him. I was nervously watching the area in which the two robbers had taken cover while Bob concentrated on looking for the man who was holding the horses. Suddenly, a horse carrying two riders swept around the hill. Gesturing wildly and pointing in the direction they had come from, the riders did not slow down when they passed by their gang mates. I was about to drop the men's mount when about a dozen more riders came careening around the curve. The new riders pulled up to a dusty stop when they saw the coach. They were too far away to hail so Bob popped a couple of rounds in the direction of the two ambushers up on the hillside to turn their attention in that direction. The newly arrived riders did turn their attention to the hillside and soon spotted the men on it. I heard one of the men shout some orders and watched as half of the riders dismounted and started peppering the hillside with rifle fire. Their fire was returned by the would be robbers, the posse scattered for cover and an intense gun battle commenced. Bob and I watched, neither of us unhappy to be spectators. As I looked from man to man among our rescuers, I saw a face I recognized. "Hey Bob, is that Grady Miller over by that reddish boulder?" Bob squinted and shrugged noncommittally. "Could be, if it is it will be the first time I have ever been happy to see him." My wondering about Miller's presence out here in the middle of nowhere was cut short when the outlaw who had taken the horses down into the gully made a break for it. He came charging out of the gully at a dead run right in back of the three men who were holding the posse's horses. He was stretched out over his horse's neck trying to make himself a smaller target. He cold-bloodedly shot one the men holding the hoses in the back as he rode past. Then for good measure he shot one of the horses in the hind end. The wounded horse started crow-hopping around neighing loudly. That spooked the other horses and created the commotion the outlaw had counted on to facilitate his escape. With the bucking and whirling horses between him and the bulk of the posse he looked to have made his get-away. What the murderer hadn't counted on was a former Confederate sharpshooter with a deadly accurate Enfield sitting two hundred yards away. I swung my rifle up onto the rock and lined the man up in my sights. I could have dropped his horse easily, but it was about the prettiest pinto pony I had ever seen, so I held my fire and waited. My opportunity came when he rose up from his horse's neck to look back, no doubt checking for pursuers. That was his official last act on God's green Earth. My shot took him cleanly in the center of his upper chest. I figured he was on his way to hell before he hit the ground. I dropped back down behind the rock and instinctively started reloading. In fewer than fifteen seconds, I was again using the rock for a rifle rest as I scanned the hillside for another target. I am ashamed to admit that for a minute or two my humanity disappeared as I coldly looked for someone else to kill. I had acquired my next target and started pulling back the hammer when Bob put his hand on my shoulder. "Back down, Jeremiah, they are trying to surrender," he said softly. I blinked my eyes a couple of times and laid my rifle down on top of the rock. "Sorry," I mumbled as I sat down and calmed myself. "You have nothing to be sorry for, son. You saved all of our lives," said our male passenger as he handed me a small silver flask. I didn't comment on that, it was not all that true anyway, but I did take a drink of his excellent whisky. He passed the flask to Bob next. I thought Bob showed admirable restraint when he only took a sip. I looked at him funny as he handed the flask back. He shrugged and squared his shoulders. "It is not politic to be drinking on duty when your boss is sure to be questioning you." Well Mister Miller did have a couple of questions for us, but more important he had a passel of answers. He told us that he and his men had been following us at a distance since we left Fort Collins. The heavy strongbox was nothing but bait to draw a robbery attempt. To avoid detection by anyone tracking us he had stayed about two miles back and counted on his two Crow Indian trackers to keep him oriented. I found it hard to believe that one of the trackers had us in sight every step of the way because we had not seen a clue of them. Anyway, when I fired the first shotgun blast, Miller and his posse had raced to save us. Miller said he had not counted on us taking independent action as we had and that was why it had taken him so long to catch us. Bob hooted at that statement and in a truly impressive barrage of foul language, told Mister Miller exactly what he thought about being used as bait. Truth be told, I was as irked as Bob. Miller mollified us both though, when he said we had earned a sizeable bonus for what we had done. Even better, the captured men told Miller that the man I had shot running away was Isaac Pruett, a notorious outlaw with a large bounty on his head. It turns out that all seven of the outlaws were wanted fugitives worth rewards of varying amounts. Yes, Miller ended up getting all seven members of the outlaw gang. His trackers ferreted out the two that escaped on one horse by nightfall. Miller even enticed the name of the Wells Fargo employee who was proving information to Pruett by promising one bandit leniency. After all that had happened that day, Bob was proudest of the fact that we rolled into Denver five minutes earlier than scheduled. Next on his list was the bottle of that fine whisky our passenger gifted each of us with when we deposited him, his wife and his mother-in-law at his dry goods store. I guess besides the reward, I was happiest about ending up with the pinto pony off of which I had shot Isaac Pruett. Miller had one of the trackers bring it to me at the Well Fargo express messenger's bunk house the following morning. Miller was in an expansive mood because one of the outlaws traded information for life in prison instead of the hangman's knot. The man led Miller to the canyon where Cottonwood Joe's stagecoach was cached and the bodies of Joe, his shotgun messenger and two passengers were buried. Miller even retrieved the strongbox and most of its contents. Bob and I had to stay in Denver for a few days waiting on our reward money. We talked quite a bit while we were waiting. Well, actually Bob talked and I just sort of listened to him ramble. It was amazing watching as Bob turned our experience with the robbers into a new life for himself. We did our talking in the bunk house and not in a saloon as I had expected we would. I saw a completely different side of Robert Rollins Randolph as he made his decision. I was happy for him when he announced he had decided to apply for the position of sheriff for Boulder County and marry Camille Devereaux. At the same time, I expressed my curiosity as to why the sheriff's job was vacant in the first place. Bob gave me that nasty little grin of his and said," No one wants the job. The last sheriff quit after two months and his predecessor was killed in a melee one Saturday night. Boulder can be an unpleasant place when the miners and cowboys hit town to let off steam. As if that weren't enough, Boulder County has become a haven of sorts for some bad elements. Isaac Pruett was even rumored to have a place there." I looked at Bob as if he had suddenly sprouted horns. "What in the world makes you think you will fare any better than your predecessors?" I asked incredulously. Again with that grin he replied, "It is simple my boy, they were not me nor did they have you for a deputy." I never thought of myself as a person who was easily led astray. I had resisted some large temptations during my admittedly short life, but Bob was much like JC in that he presented things to me in a way that I had trouble refusing. Bob made it sound as if it were our Christian and patriotic duty to clean up Boulder County. My judgment was also clouded with the idea of living in the same town as the luscious Colette. In the end, I agreed to give it a try. I would ride to Fort Collins, pick up Zeke and my pack mule then meet Bob in Boulder. Another of Bob's many quirks was that he refused to ride a horse, so he caught the stage coach he once drove while I rode the pinto to Fort Collins. Grady Miller was not in the least disturbed that we resigned from Wells Fargo. I believe he thought Bob and I were loose cannons and not the image that Wells Fargo wanted to portray. We had served his purpose and now he was happy to be done with us. He paid us our bonus, shook our hands and sent us packing. It took me three days of steady riding before I was back in Boulder. I arrived the day after Bob was installed as sheriff. Bob had given taking the job considerable thought and he had gilded the lily somewhat in pointing out its dangers to me. Yes, the miners and cowboy were a handful, but they were mostly dangerous to themselves and each other. I soon discovered that they were mostly just nuisances ... drunken pains in the butt. Of course I did not know all that when I rode back into town. In all honesty my brain was so inflamed with visions of Colette that I could think of little else. Colette was the first woman since Millie Silvestry to captivate me so. I rode into Boulder in the late afternoon. I stopped first at the livery stables to secure my horse and mules before making a beeline to Camille's establishment. I was there before dark hoping Colette was free for the evening. I had a disconcerting moment when a woman I did not know answered the door. She was a short, slender, raven-haired woman with a slightly prominent nose. I cleared my throat and asked for Colette. She smiled and gestured me into the building. After I walked in she closed the door behind me and took my arm. "You must be Jeremiah, Colette has been atwitter since Bob told her you were coming," she said as she looked me up and down. "My name is Simone and I think I am jealous, because you are a big handsome man." I was blushing hotly by the time she seated me in the front room. She gave me one last smile before she walked out of the room to fetch Colette. Colette burst through the door less than a minute later. I barely had time to stand up before she flung herself into my arms. I picked her up and swung her around as she giggled gaily. "I am so very happy to see you, Jeremiah," she gushed. I grinned and told her likewise as I set her gently on the floor. Colette grabbed me by the arm and started leading me towards the stairs. I grabbed my valise and followed her. "Camille said I need not work tonight," she said with a sweet little blush. I stopped and held up my bag. Do you think I could have a bath first and maybe something to eat? I desperately need both," I said. Colette gave me an appraising look for a few seconds and then flashed me a radiant smile. "I like you more with each moment we spend together, Jeremiah. You are so unlike the men who come in here all the time. They act as if they are doing us a favor by being here and that our company is their due. You are completely different and full of surprises. That makes you dangerous because it makes loving you too easy." I did not have anything to say in reply and I do not believe Colette expected me too. She took my arm again, this time leading me to the same room with a tub that I was in the first time. This visit, though, Colette stayed and helped me bathe. It was a novel experience for me as she knelt by the tub fully clothed and washed my hair for me. She even dried me off when I stepped out of the tub. I pulled the new clothes I bought in Denver out of my bag and put them on as Colette clucked her approval at my new outfit. I dressed in black trousers, a white shirt, a burgundy paisley cravat, grey vest and black frock coat. I thought the cravat made me appear to be a foppish dandy but Colette seemed to love it. I finished dressing and escorted Colette to the dining room. It was a very pleasant surprise to find Bob and Camille already eating at the table. Camille broke into a huge smile when we walked in the door. Bob stood up and hugged me, an act that nearly caused me to faint with embarrassment, then Camille did the same. I was not the only one sporting new duds as Bob was wearing a new suit with his sheriff's badge pinned to the coat. Colette prepared me a plate from the serving dishes on the side board, fixed one for her and sat down at the table. We enjoyed a nice meal and pleasant conversation as we all discussed Bob's and my new positions. Bob swore me in right there at the table and Colette pinned my new badge on me. We adjourned to another room after finishing our dinner. The room was another parlor but twice the size of the one we were in my last visit. There were already three other couples in the room so Camille made introductions. The woman who met me at the door was there with a well dressed silver haired man that Camille introduced as the Judge-Magistrate. When I asked, the man explained that under the territorial charter, he was the county's chief administrate officer appointed by the territorial governor. He was Bob's and my boss. The other two men were well off businessmen, one owned the mercantile and the other owned a saloon and various other businesses including the livery stable. The townsmen were happy that Bob had applied for the sheriff's job because they had been trying to keep the peace in the town for the last two months with a corps of volunteers. They had their doubts about some of Bob's novel ideas on law enforcement but were willing to give them a try. I notice that the music stand and violin were in the room when we walked in, so I was not surprised when Camille asked me to play. I dug my sheet music folio out of my valise, selected a couple of pieces and set them on the music stand. I tightened up the bow of Camille's marvelous violin, made sure it was tuned and played my first selection. The first number was the allegro from Beethoven's Violin Concerto Number One; it was a nice rhythmic piece that allowed me to warm up my fingers and bowing arm. After the Beethoven, I played the finale of Haydn's First Violin Concerto. I was showing off with the Haydn because it was a fast tempo piece that required considerable dexterity. We sat around talking until nine in the evening when the other gentlemen called it a night. As soon as they were out the door, Colette and I practically raced up the stairs to her room. Amazingly, our lovemaking that night was even better than our first time together. Colette had held back a part of herself that first time, this night she did not. In return I was eager to please her and spent many a pleasurable minute exploring her lush curves. In between bouts of sweetly intense coupling she lay in my arms and we talked. I was amazed at how quickly my feelings for her were developing. She told me she felt the same way. We were both giddy with the intensity of our emotions. We thought we were falling in love. Colette and I made love and talked until the wee hours of the morning. We fell asleep wrapped in each others arms. After that night, I was convinced that I would never be able to fall asleep not in her loving embrace. We slept until the sun was well up the next morning. I did not want to get out of bed but I had promised Bob I would begin my duties that day so I forced myself. Colette was a morning person, thank goodness, and climbed out of bed when I did. I pulled some regular clothes from my bag and dressed while Colette shimmied into a chemise and shrugged on a demure dressing gown. I might have been biased but I swear that Colette even woke up in the morning looking beautiful. ------- Chapter 8 Boulder was a mining town. The mountains just to the west of town were veined with silver, coal and sizeable deposits of gold. Because of the coal and silver mines burrowed into the mountains, there were camps of miners just out of town. Besides the men who worked the company mines, numerous prospectors worked claims all over the mountains. Boulder grew daily as more miners arrived. Businesses sprang up to service them and opportunists moved in to separate the miners from their money. It was telling that we had more saloons, dancehalls and bawdy houses than we had anything else. I thought policing such a wide open town would be nearly impossible. Bob Randolph saw things differently. Bob had roamed the west for years, and had seen towns even worse than Boulder. He used ideas that worked in those towns and adapted them to his jurisdiction. His first order of business was to convince the Judge Magistrate to levy a five dollar a week fee on the establishments that catered to the miners' pleasure. With that money Bob hired six new deputies he called peace keepers. He lured the men from the coalmines by paying them double what they were making by tunneling into the Flat Iron Hills west of town. Bob picked large men with even dispositions. Two of the deputies patrolled the streets while one stayed at the jail. Each man on patrol was armed with a pistol and a pickax handle. Running afoul of the peace keepers landed you in jail for three days on bread and water, not to mention a head made lumpy by a judicious application of axe handle therapy. Bob and I took turns patrolling on busy nights. Bob armed himself with one of the short coach shotguns because he was most familiar with that weapon. He wore it on a sling that hung the weapon on his right side at waist level. His shotgun and his short stature soon earned him the moniker "Sawed-off Bob". Bob did not impose draconian regulations on the miners and cowboys who visited town. He did, however, post a set of rules of unacceptable conduct in each place in which the men reveled. It only took a month for the miners and cowboys to figure out it was much better to follow the rules than it was spending three days in jail nursing the lumps and bruises administered by the peace keepers. My job as chief deputy was to police the county. I handled everything from missing animals to murder. Much to my annoyance, Bob had spread an embellished account of my part in the fracas with the Pruett Gang. In Bob's version, I'd shot Pruett off his horse from a half mile away and dispatched two others in a duel at point blank range. As a result of Bob's fanciful stories about me, I soon had the reputation as an avenging wraith thirsting for the blood of the lawless. I'm sure that such a reputation might have come in handy were there any lawless elements on the loose. That was not the case though, because the few acts of violence I handled were all related to gold and silver claims and were, for the most part, easy to solve. The bad elements that once resided in the county mostly departed for greener pastures when the Army expanded Fort Collins and stationed a battalion of Buffalo Soldiers there. The Negro cavalry men were seasoned Indian fighters up from the New Mexico Territory who aggressively patrolled fifty miles in every direction around Fort Collins. The soldiers' presence less than a hard half day's ride away actually made Boulder more secure than Denver. That's why Pruett attacked us on the Denver side of Boulder. All of those facts combined meant that my duties as Chief Deputy of Boulder County were not in the least exciting. The only thing that kept me in town after the first month was Colette and my friendship with Bob. February 1867 was a brutally cold month, even in the lower elevations of the Rocky Mountains. At our elevation we didn't receive much snow. Mother Nature took care of that oversight with ice crystal fogs that the locals called pogonip. When the pogonip blanketed the land, it was so bitterly cold it took your breath away. The weather was bad enough to keep the miners from coming into town. Boulder was a virtual ghost town as everyone stayed indoors as much as possible. It was great being house bound with Colette for days at a time — at first. Then, as the days together piled up, we both realized that, except for the smoldering passion we shared, we had little in common. Colette's solution to the problem was to try and change me. I had my first inking of Colette's plans for me when I returned from three days up at the Gold Hill mining camp. Gold Hill sat on a mountainside above Left Hand Canyon, in the northwest portion of the county. Gold Hill, a boom town with a population of over six hundred, was the location of the first Colorado gold strike in 1859. Most of the town's population were miners who lived outside of town on their claims. The actual built up portion of the town was one street with three or four buildings on either side of it. Gold Hill could not grow the way Boulder could because there was hardly any water in the area. By contrast, Boulder was hard by Boulder Creek, a large year round source of water. I was called up there because a prospector had been beaten to death with a shovel while working his claim. I arrived in Gold Hill just before dark, and took a room at the Gold Hill Inn. The next morning I braved the bitter cold and started poking around the dead miner's claim. I questioned his neighbors and found out who his friends were. I tracked down his friends and questioned them. The third man I interviewed broke down and remorsefully admitted killing his friend. The two had gotten into a drunken argument over a card game. It was too late to travel back down the mountain, so I manacled the man to the foot of my bed at the inn. I had someone from the inn's staff fix him a pallet on the floor for the night. We left soon after sunrise the next morning, me riding Zeke with my prisoner walking in front of us. Thankfully, the day warmed up above zero and the sun shone brightly. It was late afternoon by the time I had my prisoner secured in the jail. I wrote out my report for the Judge-Magistrate, including my recommendations for punishment. The man wasn't a cold-blooded killer, and was genuinely remorseful for what he had done. I reckoned ten to fifteen years in the territorial prison would be punishment enough. I headed to Camille's place and the room I shared with Colette, only to find that Colette was booked for the evening. I was tired from the trip but did not feel like staying in her room alone, so I walked over to the Silver Strike Saloon for a shot or two of tequila. I stayed at the saloon and traded outrageous lies with a couple of off duty peace keepers until nine that night. I only drank a couple of shots to warm my innards. The rest of the time I sipped a mug of beer. Bob walked into the saloon at nine so I joined him on the rest of his rounds. Bob had settled into his position as sheriff nicely, and was hugely popular with the town's citizens. Bob's knowledge of the law and his even handed approach even gained the respect of the rough-neck miners and cowboys. We were sitting at the Flat Iron Saloon having a cup of coffee when I told Bob that I was thinking about heading back to Wyoming as soon as it warmed up some. Bob was surprised and unhappy about me considering leaving, but he understood how I felt. After all, he had drifted around for almost two decades before deciding to settle down. "I hate to loose you Jeb, you are a hell of a deputy, but I understand how it is. Are you taking Colette with you?" I told him I did not think so and explained about us drifting apart. That seemed to be news to him, as his eyebrows arched up in surprise. "You might want to talk to Colette about that, Jeb. I think she is of a different opinion," he said. I found out what Bob was alluding too later that night as Colette and I recovered from a vigorous bout of loving. "Jeremiah, you need a better job in order for us to marry," Colette said primly and out of the blue. "I do?" I asked, my surprise making me stupid. I felt her head nod on my shoulder before she sat up against the headboard, pulling the continental quilt up with her. "Yes, you do," she continued. "You are a smart and talented man; everyone says that. We can live a grand life if you apply yourself. Mister Webb told me just tonight that he would hire you starting at twice what you are making now. With that kind of money, we could buy a nice house and start a family." I sat up also and searched her face in the pale red light cast by the glowing coal embers in the room's small two burner stove. I was sorry to see that she was not smiling, because I had the faint hope she might have been joshing me. "Colette, I think the world of you, but I'm nowhere near being ready to marry and settle down. I still have some catching up with life to do to make up for the years I lost to the war. As for working for Webb, he can forget about that event ever occurring. His hands are too dirty for my comfort." "Richard is not like that at all," she retorted hotly. It caught my attention that she focused in on what I said about Richard Webb instead of my not being ready for marriage. As I sat there silently appraising her, she had the grace to blush and turn her head. I gently cupped her chin and pulled her face around. "If you have feelings for Webb, why not let him know? I want you to be happy, Colette; maybe you would be if you admitted to yourself that you were with the wrong man," I said softly. Colette and I talked late into the night. We worked out that we were not meant to be together in anyway except physically. We made love one last time before falling asleep. I packed up my things the next morning as she cried. With a last hug and a small kiss, I trundled out of her room and moved my belongings down to the jail. Severing my relationship with Colette had left a lump in my throat I had not expected. I did not love her, but I had feeling for her nonetheless. It saddened me that I would not be spending my nights in her arms any longer. However, now that we had split, it would be much easier to leave Boulder and return home. Bob talked me into staying in town for a couple of weeks so I could train one of the peace keepers as my replacement. I agreed and even sat in with Bob as he interviewed three of them for the position. I agreed with his choice and, the following morning, Mathew Drexel and I headed out to make the rounds together. Mathew learned quickly and was probably much more suited in temperament for the job than I was. It took me eight days to take him around the county and introduce him to my contacts at the mining camps, towns and ranches. As we rode I briefed him on what I had learned about each place we visited. When I finally rode out of Boulder, I was confident that Mathew was much better prepared for his duties than I had been. I had supper at Camille's with Bob on the night before I departed. Camille dined with us, as did Colette and Robert Webb. My companion for the evening was the ebony haired Simone. Camille kept the evening from being about anything except my going home for a visit. "You'll be back to see us before long, Jeremiah," she stated. "You will return because you have such good friends here and such fond memories." I played my last bit of music on Camille's superior violin that evening. That fine instrument was yet another thing that I would miss about Boulder. Bob and I excused ourselves around nine and ambled down to the Silver Strike Saloon. Bob wanted to stand me a drink and say adios in surrounding more natural for both of us. We stood at the bar, each with a double shot of tequila, and reminisced about the last four months. We had a good laugh at some of the things that had happened to us. Bob summed it up nicely when he said, "We kept stepping into defecation, yet ended up smelling of roses." I was not going home empty handed. I left Boulder with a new horse and almost six hundred dollars of my reward money. I spent my first night on the trail at the Fort Collins Wells Fargo bunkhouse. I ended up staying at the bunkhouse because I ran into Grady Miller at the same saloon in which he and I shared a drink back in November. Grady knew all about Bob being the sheriff of Boulder County, and was amazed at the results Bob had achieved. My having resigned as deputy did not surprise Miller. He said he had not expected me to stay on as long as I had. He said, "I do not see you putting down roots for a while, Brock. Your life thus far has been too full of adventure for you to suddenly settle down. When you grow bored with Wyoming again, look me up in Denver. I might have something of interest for you." I thanked Miller for the offer of the bunkhouse and told him that if I ever returned to Denver I would drop in to see him. I rode up to my family's house in the early afternoon of a gorgeous late winter day. The temperature was probably no higher than the mid twenties, but the bright sun beating down made it seem warmer. I did not see anyone about, so I dismounted the pinto and led all three of my animals toward the barn. I was impressed at how much work had been done around the homestead. Despite the weather, two corrals had been built, one on either side of the barn. The split rail fence from the front of the corals extended down to the creek in one direction and into the wood line in the other. The framework for a second, even larger barn had also been erected and the roof was half shingled. Rocks were piled in two locations a hundred feet on either side of the house and a large stack of debarked logs sat next to the stones. I was almost at the double doors when Alice came barreling out of the barn. I had just enough time to brace myself before she catapulted her small body against me. "Jeb, it is so good to see you," she squealed. Alice's squealing brought Ruth and Joshua out of the barn, where they had been cleaning stalls and spreading hay. Josh tried to act as if he was not excited my arrival. Instead, he solemnly held out his hand. "Good afternoon Uncle Jeb," he intoned formally. I ignored his hand and pulled him into a hug with the arm not full of Alice. "Hello you two, are you staying out of trouble?" I asked teasingly. Josh nodded his head affirmatively, but Alice stuck her tongue out at me and crossed her eyes. I burst out laughing because they gave the answers I expected to hear. I released the youngsters and turned my attention to Ruth. Alice and Josh had grown enough for me to notice, but Ruth had changed into an almost entirely different person. Ruth had always been tall, the same as her mother. She still was, however she had rounded out in all the places that had been flat before. Even her simple loose frock gave testimony to her budding figure. My brother's sturdiness and Anne's willowy shape combined to give Ruth a slender, yet curvy figure. Ruth was two months away from turning fifteen, yet she was already about five feet-seven inches and weighed probably one hundred and twenty pounds. I looked her up and down, and then asked the youngsters, "Who is your new grownup friend?" Alice and Josh hooted with laughter as Ruth blushed crimson. "That's no grownup," Joshua crowed, "that is just Cousin Ruthie." Being embarrassed by her younger cousins did not prevent Ruth from gliding over to me and kissing me softly on the cheek. "Welcome home Jeremiah," she said, her voice soft and sweet. Josh and Ruth walked to the house while Alice helped me put away my horse and mules. She jabbered excitedly as we worked. She kept telling me how happy she was that I was home. To hear Alice tell it, no one in the family understood or listened to her except me. Rachael brought our conversation to a halt when she came bustling into the barn. She had tears in her eyes when she stepped into my outstretched arms. I gave Rachael a kiss and hugged her; she squeezed me tight and laid her head on my chest with a sigh. "I missed your arms sweet baby. How long are you going to be here?" I think I made her day when I told her I was staying for a while. I managed to extricate myself from Rachael's grasp and finish bedding down my livestock before the three of us headed to the house. Ma greeted me at the door with a firm hug. I was thrilled that she appeared healthier and happier than I had seen in two years. The first thing she did after the hug was to thank me for writing her. I had posted a letter to the family in care of the Cheyenne Trading Post about every three weeks. Ma, Rachael, Curtis and the children were the only ones home when I arrived. JC and Sean were helping Abraham Tellers finish a tool shed while Anne and Florence visited with his wives. The greeting JC gave me when he and the others arrived home was close kin to embarrassing. He hugged me almost as tight as Rachael and Alice had. JC and I were closer than most blood relatives. Four years of grinding war, countless long days of boredom, punctuated by minutes of stark terror and shared hardships, had bonded us together in a way that no accident of birth could duplicate. I would take a bullet for JC and he would for me. JC was much more demonstrative of his feeling than I; no doubt his Italian blood had something to do with that. I took JC out to the barn to show him my new horse. He took advantage of us being alone to express his unhappiness towards my leaving in the first place. "Like it or not, Jeb, your entire family depends on you. They count on your steady strength of character to keep them all safe. Anne and Florence rely on Sean and me to some extent, but we all feel much more secure when you are around. You have too many responsibilities to go traipsing off whenever the fancy strikes you." I inwardly cringed when he used the word 'responsibility', because I hated that word and loathed the concept. I did not ask for nor did I want the responsibility for anyone, or, with the exception of Zeke the mule, any thing. I know that makes me sound petty and selfish, but so be it. I wanted a life of my own for a while; I wanted the youth so callously stolen from me by the war. My brain saw what JC was alluding to, but my soul yearned for something more. That inner conflict had been what caused me to leave last November. I shrugged noncommittally and told JC that I would think about it. I did think some about my responsibilities and, with plenty to do now that the weather was warming, I dedicated myself to being a productive member of the family again. One of the casualties of my leaving was my relationship with Rachael. I was honest with her and told her all about Colette. I mentioned before that I thought Rachael's and my physical relationship was one of nearness and convenience. I thought she loved me as I felt about her, not in a romantic way, but as very close friends. I was wrong in every way it was possible to be. Rachael was deeply hurt that I had left and taken up with another woman and had very little to do with me after that. I was astounded by her reaction and I felt horrible that I had hurt her so. The day after I arrived home, Curtis, Alice and I resumed felling trees and dragging them back to the creek. The logs we were bringing back would be the outer walls of houses for JC and his family, and for Sean and his. We were going to build the two houses at the same time, foundation to roof. The houses would be the same size but each would have a slightly different layout and façade. The preparations made prior to starting the new houses, combined with the experience we gained building the first cabin, meant that the next two went up faster and easier. We were also able to make the first house more livable at the same time. By the middle of June, each part of the family was comfortably ensconced in their own snug home. I contributed labor to the construction but I helped the most by making two trips to North Platte, Nebraska, the western terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad. I went to North Platte because windows and milled doors were available there. Grenville Dodge, JC's partner and the chief of construction for the Union Pacific, was bringing in huge quantities of building materials to construct a major rail yard in North Platte. Dodge was selling us the items we needed at his cost. Since the Union Pacific was absorbing the cost of transporting the goods to the frontier, it was quite a boon to us. JC, Sean and Dodge were deep in business together when I returned from Boulder. They had made elaborate plans for the town of Cheyenne and were actively working them. Their plans called for a town of sorts to exist even before the railroad arrived later that year. Because of their plans, I was able to start my freight business hauling supplies and equipment from the advancing railhead to Cheyenne. On July 4, 1867, Grenville Dodge, JC Colbert and Sean McDougal officially proclaimed the city of Cheyenne into existence. In less than a month, over a thousand people had streamed into town looking to get rich with the coming of the railroad. The new residents bought wood from a sawmill that JC and Dodge owned and started building businesses and homes at a frantic rate. Abraham Tellers ran the mill and Joseph Barton supervised the logging crew. The equipment for the sawmill was delivered by Georgia Jeb's Freight Service. Dodge and his new partners bought out the trading post and turned it into the town's first general store. When the new settlers arrived, everything they needed to exist including land, building materials, supplies and equipment had to be purchased from the Cheyenne Company owned by Dodge, Colbert and McDougal. We saw much more of Grenville Dodge after the Fourth of July. The closer the Union Pacific tracks neared, the more time he spent with JC. JC's house was finished by then and Dodge was a frequent guest there. I still had mixed feeling about Dodge. On the surface he seemed a good man and there was no denying that he was helping my family. Yet, he still made me uneasy. For lack of a better description, he seemed too good to be true. My unease grew when he and Rachael developed a romantic interest in each other. ------- Chapter 9 I worked almost continually hauling freight during the summer of 1867 as the railroad came ever closer to Cheyenne. I would bring in a load, spend the night at home, then depart with a fresh team the following morning. I worked day in, day out without a break. The constant work was a palliative of sorts for me and not at all unpleasant. I was finally doing what I had dreamed of for years. Alice McDougal went with me on trips that did not require more mules than could be controlled from the driver's box. She loved driving the team and she was becoming very good at it. I was amazed that fiery little Alice never lost her temper with the mules. She had an easy explanation for that when I asked her about it. "The mules make mistakes because they don't know any better, Jeb, but they seldom make the same mistake twice. How many people can you say that about?" She had a point. Alice was twelve now and proud as punch that she had grown a few inches. She was still a slip of a thing, although it was not a good idea to point that out to her. She was the smallest person in the family, as even her younger step-brother Morgan shot by her in his latest growth spurt, yet she was the most daring and feisty of the bunch. She was a natural leader and a master at flimflamming the other children into whatever she schemed. Alice was also very intelligent; she was smart enough to stay out of trouble with the adults and stayed out of everyone's way but mine. She became the little sister I never had. I did not have an opportunity to talk with JC about Grenville Dodge until the middle of August. I had to wait a couple of months for JC to be home and Dodge to be elsewhere. As I waited for a good time to approach my old friend, I could not help but to notice how he seemed to be emulating Dodge in how he spoke and dressed. He wore suits mostly now and he worked hard at losing his Texas drawl. I finally walked over to his house one evening and asked if he could spare me a few minutes of his time. JC looked at me for a second then ushered me into his house. "You know I always have time for you Jeb; you are the one that is never around," he said as if he were exasperated with me. I shrugged my shoulders in reply and walked into his front room. Anne gave me a hug and kissed my cheek. Anne was very obviously pregnant and she looked radiantly happy. My nieces, Ruth and Rose, both gave me hugs as well. I will admit that I enjoyed Ruth's hug very much as she pressed her tall and well developed body against me. JC had made a number of improvements to their house. The floors were wood planks instead of packed dirt and the walls were plastered and whitewashed. JC walked me to the kitchen table as Anne bustled around fixing us a cup of coffee. She plunked our coffee down on the table and excused herself so we could talk. As soon as Anne was out of earshot, I said my piece. "JC, I do not trust Grenville Dodge even a little bit. I also do not like the idea of our family becoming so cozy with him. It bothers me that you and Sean are partnered up with him and it worries me that Rachael is romantically involved with him." JC regarded me over the top of his coffee cup for almost half a minute before saying anything, then he sighed and set his cup on the table. "Dodge has been fair and honest in his dealing with us, Jeb. As far as I know, he is a respected and upright man. What is it about him that you do not trust?" I was slightly embarrassed that I could not give him a definitive answer. "I cannot put my finger on any one thing, JC. I just have a bad feeling about him." JC gave me another one of those searching looks because, during the war when I had those feelings, they were right more often than wrong. His answer acknowledged that, "I think you are wrong this time Jeb." After giving me a thoughtful look he continued, "Are you sure your feelings are not jealousy because Grenville is sparking Rachael?" I sat back in my chair stunned that JC could think such a thing. Of course, I just finished all but accusing him of being in partnership with a crook, so I did not have a case for righteous indignation. "Look, JC," I said, "I care a lot about Rachael just as I do all of my family, you included. I worry about her being hurt by Dodge. " JC snorted derisively and said, "I doubt Dodge could hurt her any more than you already have, no matter what he did." I winced and nodded ruefully to acknowledge the validity of his statement. "That may be so, but I did it through stupidity. Dodge, on the other hand, is not stupid. Everything he does is calculated." JC and I both stuck to our views of Dodge, yet we parted still best friends. The issue wasn't important enough for either of us to sacrifice our friendship. JC did agree that he would caution Dodge on the consequences of hurting Rachael. I felt better just by him doing that. I had plenty of time to think about Dodge, Rachael and my family on my trips back and forth to the railhead. Not that it did me much good, especially in the case of Rachael. Despite being twenty-one and all I had lived though, and regardless of my being sexually experienced, I found that women were unimaginably complex and unfathomable. That Rachael harbored such strong feelings for me was a complete shock to me. I knew we had a strong sexual attraction for each other and thought we had a shared love as family; anything beyond that was a surprise. Knowing that I stupidly flaunted my relationship with Colette and hurt Rachael made me feel lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut. In September of 1867, I traveled to Sydney, Nebraska to buy a couple of large Percheron mares and the biggest jackass I had ever seen. No, let me amend that; it was the biggest four legged jackass I've ever seen. The jack and mares were the first step toward our dream of breeding our own mules. JC put up half the money for the new stock and I put up the other. Our homestead was perfect for raising a few horses and mules, but it was too hilly and heavily forested to ranch. That is why the small valley was still unclaimed when we arrived in Wyoming. JC still planned on owning a cattle ranch and was negotiating thru Grenville Dodge to purchase three thousand acres of open range owned by the Union Pacific. The railroad finally arrived in Cheyenne early in November of 1867. The town that had only existed on paper six months previous now had a population of four thousand people. Cheyenne quickly became as rough a place as Boulder, Colorado had been. While the railroad was under construction nearby, railroad men called Railroad Regulation Enforcement Officers, or Regulators for short, kept the peace. Problems arose when the Regulators moved west with the construction gangs leaving Cheyenne virtually lawless. Cheyenne's leading citizens formed a town council to address the problem in December of 1867. Their first official act was to appoint JC Colbert as Mayor Pro Tem. JC, in turn, convinced me to accept a temporary appointment as Town Marshall until someone permanent was found. I did not want any part of the job but was guilted into it when JC asked me why I would not do for my family and home what I did for strangers down in Boulder. I took the job before the marshal's office and four cell jail were built. I followed Bob Randolph's example, and hired my own peace keepers and posted the same list of rules. The jail was completed on January the fifteenth; it was full of prisoners by the sixteenth. The jail stayed mostly filled for the next ten days as the peace keepers and I enforced the Cheyenne Town Code posted in each bawdy house, saloon and dance hall. Once the miners, railroad men and cowboys understood that misbehaving was not tolerated, things settled down. I worked day and night for the first two weeks backing up the peace keepers with my shotgun and brawn. Everyone knew me after a week or so, and I had a fair grasp on the temperament of many of our citizens. One group with whom I established an excellent rapport was the fallen doves working at the entertainment establishments. I think that the women helped keep the peace almost as much as my deputies once I convinced them that they should insist men act properly. I got on well with the town folk; I did not with the miners, drovers and railroad men. I do not know if it was because I looked young or if it was general animus towards my badge but for whatever reason, it seemed that every night someone tested me. I was involved in my first duel during those weeks. The event was a first I would rather have avoided because of the sheer barbarism of it. The duel was thrust upon me by a drunken cowhand from one of the big spreads up state. He and his friends were in town after driving five hundred head of cattle to our new railhead for shipment to Chicago. Ironically, the herd he drove into our new cattle yard was the first to arrive in town. The cattle pens on the west end of town were owned by JC and Dodge. JC purchased the cattle while Dodge arranged for their shipment and sale in Chicago, and the two men split the profits. The young cowboy who challenged me had collected his pay after the cattle drive and headed for the first saloon he saw. Four hours later I walked into the same saloon just as he pulled his pistol and shot another man over a hand of cards. The young cowboy's gun play was the first time I saw a man draw his pistol from its holster and fire it in one motion. I was amazed at the speed with which he completed the maneuver. As his victim fell to the ground the young cowboy looked around wildly, his pistol swinging in erratic arcs. I was in a quandary over how to handle the gun waving cowboy because the crowd in the saloon made using my shotgun too dangerous. I carried a pistol but it was in an old Union holster with a flap that prevented the pistol from falling out whilst riding. As the young drover assimilated the shock of taking another man's life, I eased open the holster flap and started to pull my pistol. The cowboy caught my movement and swung his pistol barrel in my direction. In a move born of self preservation, I dropped to the floor and completed extracting my pistol as the bullet he fired whistled over my head. I yelled at him to drop his piece but he chose instead to start pulling back the hammer on his big Colt Army. I fired before he could complete the maneuver. Thankfully for the cowhand, the round I fired was off aimed and hit him in the right shoulder instead of the chest as I intended. My errant shot caused the cowboy to drop his weapon and sag back against the table where two other men quickly penned him down. I gave his wound a cursory inspection, sent for the town's new doctor and undertaker, then hauled the cowboy off to jail. The cowboy was my introduction to the new breed of western desperados making their way north from Texas and the New Mexico Territory. The men called themselves gunslingers and took great pride in their fast draw techniques. I was to have a number of run-ins with the breed in the coming years, both those hired to enforce the law and those who were outlaws. I never trusted any of them because they switched sides with alarming regularity. I met men who were rustlers one day and U.S. Marshals the next. I commandeered the fancy gunbelt, holster and shooting iron of my prisoner and secretly practiced drawing and firing for hours on end. I never became as good as the best of them but my war experience made me careful and alert. I never put myself in a position where my only option was to draw down on someone. Shooting the cowboy solidified my reputation as a man who would not shy away from a fight while carrying out my duties. The shooting and stories that drifted up from Boulder also earned me the unwanted and undeserved reputation as a steely-eyed killer. Although I hated to be thought of that way, my reputation made men think twice about challenging me. It is not hard to imagine the growing pains Cheyenne suffered during its first year as a town when you consider that it went from a population of zero to five thousand in only eight months. The influx of people far exceeded construction of places for them to live. The lack of housing led to a shantytown popping up to the north of the town along the creek that led up to our homestead. People in the shantytown passed the harsh winter in tents and hastily cobbled together huts. Residents of the shantytown were mostly families in which the husband worked in some construction trade, building the money making businesses on Cheyenne's main street. I made it a part of my job to look out for those people's welfare. My Ma was a great help in that, as were Rachael, Anna, Florence and the wives of the Mormonites. My amazing mother successfully petitioned JC, Sean and Grenville Dodge to build a two room schoolhouse out that way. Ma taught the older kids while Anne's daughter Ruth, now close to turning sixteen, taught the younger ones. Ma was nearing sixty-five yet she had the vigor of a woman much younger. She was deeply concerned with the plight of the children in shantytown and strove to make life better for them. Despite all our efforts, many people died in shantytown during that long grueling winter and most of those deaths were women and children. Everyone in Cheyenne was more than ready when springtime came to us. By the middle of April we had essentially thawed out and the snow at the lower elevations was melting rapidly. The warm weather brought a frenetic building boom. Railroad construction also began anew as a spur line was started, heading south to link Cheyenne with Denver, and the route west was continued into Utah. General Dodge gained the rights for the rail line to Denver in 1867 when gold was discovered up in the South Pass region of central Wyoming. Dodge and JC opened an assay office at their bank to service the prospectors. The railroad spur line would facilitate moving the gold from Cheyenne to the Denver mint, and connect Denver to the rest of the Union Pacific system. The result of all this was a sharp increase in the number of entertainment establishments on main street and a corresponding jump in the number of men visiting them. One of the things I insisted on was that the entertainment businesses not try to cheat their guests. I was hard nosed about running a clean town and that earned me the respect of the men visiting Cheyenne for a good time. My rapport with the fallen doves working the saloons and dance halls helped as the girls told me where the crooked card games and other cheats were held. I ran a number of card sharps and confidence men out of Cheyenne in a very public manner to discourage others of their ilk. Along the way, I made a number of enemies. One of those enemies was Rafe Duggins, the owner of one of the largest saloons in town. His Golden Palace was also the source of much trouble for me. My deputies or I were there nearly every night breaking up some sort of fracas. I suspected that Duggins was running some crooked games, but I couldn't catch him in the act and his bar girls and dancers feared him too much to tell me about it. The situation with Duggins came to a head when he killed two railroad men in a gunfight over a card game. According to witnesses, the railroad men had lost all of their money and accused Duggins of cheating. Everyone who saw the fight agreed that, while Duggins had acted in self defense, he used much more violence than the situation warranted. After I concluded my investigation and the bodies of the hapless railroad men were removed, I pulled Duggins aside for a little chat. "One more incident Duggins and I'll close your place down. The same applies if I catch you cheating or even short-changing someone," I warned. Duggins looked at me coldly and spoke his mind. "Do not threaten me boy," he growled. "Bad things happen to those foolish enough to do that." I did not respond to his threat, but I reiterated my warning and walked away. I was foolish enough to think that a man like Duggins would heed my warnings, and for a week or so it appeared I was correct. Then one night on my rounds, a girl named Beverly who I was friendly with gave me some disturbing news. Beverly was a dancer at the Whistle Stop Saloon and Dancehall, and we were actually dancing when she relayed her tidbit. "A girl I know over at the Palace told me that her boss was boasting that he has hired an assassin to kill you Jeremiah, so you need to be extra careful," she whispered in my ear. Beverly was not a beautiful woman, but her smile and sparkling personality made up for anything she lacked. We were occasional lovers as well as friends. We were very well matched in bed and I would have enjoyed spending more time in one with her. It was Beverly who limited our time together. When I asked her why, her answer surprised me. "I enjoy our time together too much Jeremiah, which is why I do not see you that often. I am already halfway in love with you and if I had you more, I would want you even more." The night she warned me about Duggins plans her affection for me was obvious by the way in which she worried about me. I took Beverly's warning to heart and became even more careful during my evening rounds. I also asked Beverly to see if she could pinpoint when Duggins' hired killer would arrive. I wanted to end the attempt on my life before it started. Around noon, three days later, Beverly dropped by my office and informed me that the man had arrived. She even provided me with his description. At three that afternoon I strolled over to the Golden Palace, my shotgun freshly loaded with double-ought buckshot and my pistol reloaded with new powder and primers. I was dressed in my Sunday suit and wearing the new black Stetson I bought the week before. My silver marshal's badge was freshly polished as were my best Wellington boots. I was prepared to make a grand exit if it was my day to die. I know that sounds melodramatic but listen, after all I'd been through in my life, this was the first time I ever went looking for trouble. I was sailing uncharted waters. I walked through the swinging doors of the Palace as if I owned the place, stepping to my right as the doors swung closed behind me. As soon as my eyes adjusted to the dim light inside the saloon, I spotted Duggins sitting at a table in the back with a dapper man wearing a black leather vest and a low crowned, narrow brimmed, black leather hat. As I marched toward their table, the man's glittering obsidian eyes stared unblinkingly into mine. He had a smug little half smile on his face as he shifted slightly in his chair so that his right hand and gun were unobstructed. I watched him carefully and when his right shoulder twitched I casually pulled back the rabbit ears on my stage gun. The man smirked when I did that and put both his hands on the table in front of him. I eased the hammers closed on the shotgun as I reached the table. "You would not shoot me in cold blood, would you boy?" the man said. "Not before I give you a chance to leave town," I replied. With that ever present smirk, the man said, "Why would I leave town, boy? I just got here and I was thinking of staying a spell." I shrugged and slammed the butt of my shotgun down on the back of his right hand that was resting on the table. The man screamed and fell backwards out of his chair. Duggins reached for his pistol then, so I slammed the barrels of the scatter gun down on his right shoulder. When I hit him I clearly heard bone break. Duggins moaned and slumped forward but stayed in his chair. I walked around the table and pulled the gunman back into his chair by his collar. I turned his head so we were eye to eye again. "I'm going to send for a doctor and have him do what he can for your hand. As soon as the doc finishes with you, climb on your horse and get out of my town. If I see you after the sun sets, I will throw you under the jail, understand?" When he nodded I turned my attention to Duggins. "As for you, Duggins, I'm shutting you down. I want this place empty and the door nailed shut by dark. I will give you three days to put your affairs in order and leave town. Come Friday, if I lay my eyes on you I am going to arrest you for attempted murder, got it?" One of the bartenders fetched old Doc Reilly. It was early enough in the day so that the sawbones was fairly sober when he splinted the cowboy's broken fingers and smashed thumb. I posted a couple of my deputies at the saloon to help Mister Gunslinger on his way, then changed clothes and went back to work. I was not especially proud of the way I had acted, but I had done what I thought I needed to do. As in many things in my life, I had badly miscalculated when I tried to run Duggins out of town. I had never paid any attention to politics, so I did not know that he was in thick with three of the five members of the town council. JC set me straight on that the next day when he dropped my office at noon. JC looked uncomfortable as he pushed his hat back on his head and leaned back in his chair. "Jeb, Rafe Duggins has petitioned the town council for an emergency hearing concerning official misconduct by you. We are meeting this afternoon at three and you are required to be there." I walked into the closed-door council meeting, angry and anxious to defend my good name. I also walked in the door as a complete neophyte in the way politics work in real life. Once the council was called into session, Rafe was asked to state his case. It took every bit of self control I had to keep from exploding as Duggins proceeded to mix two half truths amongst more lies than I could count. When it was my turn to tell my side of the story, JC skillfully questioned me in a manner that forced me to answer with specifics instead of giving vent to my anger. In the end I was cleared of any wrong doing, but my closure decree for the Golden Palace was rescinded. Instead, the council voted three to two to give Duggins a warning and sixty days probation, after which the matter would be reexamined. I was gratified that JC and Sean both backed me unquestioningly. Nonetheless, I tossed my badge on the council's table on my way out of the room. I was not about to keep the job if a bunch of crooked politicos could overrule my decisions. JC followed me out of the meeting room and asked me to at least stay on another month, but that was not going to happen. Serving as marshal while Duggins ran his saloon would mean that I condoned what he was doing. If I learned anything from serving under Robert E. Lee it was that once you started compromising your integrity it was nearly impossible to reclaim it. The best of my former deputies was promoted to take my place and I went back to hauling freight with no hard feelings. Heck, all I had ever wanted to be was a muleskinner anyway. In less than a week I was back in the freight business bigger than ever. In May I started making a weekly run to the gold mining towns up in the South Pass. South Pass City was the largest of the gold towns in Sweetwater County because it was the closest to the Carissa Lode. The Carissa Lode was a large gold deposit along Willow Creek. A man named Readall was constructing a mine at the site of the lode and I was transporting his supplies and equipment from the railhead in Cheyenne. It was an eighty-five mile trip one way, through some hostile territory. I used a twenty mule team to transport the heavy mining equipment, the biggest team I had ever driven. I put old Zeke as the lead mule and rode him as I controlled the jerk line that kept the other mules following us. Because of the hardship of the trip and the danger of attacks from the Sioux Indians, I made the trip alone. In the middle of June of 1868, I encountered four unusual people at the base of Little Baldy Mountain on a return trip from South Pass City. They were flagging me down so I whoaed my team and dismounted. At the time I did not have a clue that the chance meeting would lead to an adventure that made my life to date seem bland. ------- Chapter 10 I was not understating facts when I said that the four people who stopped me on the road from South Pass were unusual. Everything about them was slightly off, from their clothes to their manner of speech. I also wondered how the three women and one man had ended up on foot twenty miles from the nearest town carrying nothing but small packs on their backs. Politeness stopped me from asking the strangers about it though. Instead, I slid out of Zeke's saddle and introduced myself. "Howdy folks, my name is Jeremiah Brock but you can call me Jeb. What can I do to help you?" I was surprised when one of the women stepped forward and stuck out her hand. I was even more surprised that she was danged near as tall as I. She flashed me a dazzling smile, her teeth as white as newly fallen snow and as straight as the pickets on a fence. I took her proffered hand lightly in mine as she introduced herself. "Pleased to meet you Mister Brock, my name is Sonja Scanda Ferren. My companions and I wonder if your conveyance is for hire." Miss Ferren had long slender fingers and her hand was soft and uncallused. I could not help but notice that all four of them were clean and well groomed. Their appearance spoke of money. Miss Ferren did not have an accent I could place although she spoke in an oddly clipped manner. I allowed that yes I was for hire and asked what they wanted me to haul for them. Sonja waved the man forward. "We thought we'd have to walk to the nearest town so it was fortuitous you came along today. Show Jeb the map, Jonathan," she said crisply. The man hastened to comply. He pulled a strange looking piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. The paper was slick, shiny and printed in four or five colors. The map was in great geographic detail but did not have roads or trails marked on it. Jonathan pointed out where we were on the map and then pointed out a point on the map to our northwest. "We need transportation to this location. On our return trip we will be heavily laden," he said. I looked at the odd map then pointed off to the north-northwest at a jagged looking mountain peak. "You are talking about Evil Spirit Mountain and you do not want to go there. The Shoshone red men claim the mountain is cursed. I know for a fact that everyone who has ever been up there catches some sickness and dies a slow painful death," I said. The strangers were not deterred by my grim proclamation, if anything, they became even more excited. One of the other women yipped, "Radiation sickness! This has to be the right place." I asked what radiation sick was, alarmed that they would knowingly come in contact with it. Sonja gave me another of those blinding smiles. "My excitable friend is Helena Medi Thompson. Do not worry about the sickness because we have protection against it and you will not be exposed to it anyway. We will pay you well for taking us there and back and you can stay with your animals the entire time." I agreed to take them up to Evil Spirit when Sonja reached into her little pack and pulled out a gold ingot that had to weigh at least ten ounces. I would normally have to work all summer to make that much money. Sonja introduced me to the final member of her group once we struck our deal. The last woman had red hair and freckles much like little Alice. Her name was Coleen Celt O'Neil. Even their names were unusual, I thought to myself as I shook Coleen's hand. The group was as different from one another as it was for four people to be. Sonja was blonde with big blue eyes and attractive regular features. Helena had thick wavy black hair, an olive complexion and wide brown eyes, Coleen had green eyes to go with her flaming tresses, while Jonathan (I learned later that his full name was Jonathan Chin Lo) had a decided oriental cast to his appearance. As I said before, they were all tall and somewhat slender. They were also attractive in their own way but they did not look to me to be made of stern enough material to be out here on the frontier. I was dying of curiosity about how they came to be here, unarmed and on foot. I was surprised when my customers enthusiastically helped me disassemble the twenty mule team and unhook the three wagons I had been hauling. Tending twenty mules was just as big a job as it sounds, especially for one man. I had a routine that made the job marginally easier but it was still an effort. By rights I should have had at least two more teamsters working with me but I was too cussed stubborn to hire someone. They were my mules and my wagons so I took care of things by my lonesome. I was unhooking my big pulling rig and breaking the team down between the three wagons for the trip up to Evil Spirit. I planned on having my customers take turns driving two of the wagons. I would lead the way and they would trail me. My mules were smart and well trained enough to follow me regardless how badly my fancy city folks drove them. Sonja was obviously in charge of this curious little band so I directed most of my comments and instructions toward her. All four of them seemed fascinated with everything I showed them. Jonathan added to the strangeness by pulling a small silver colored object out of his pack and pointing it all around. His female companions would strike some sort of pose and smile anytime he pointed the little box at them. I knew the man was touched in the head when he pointed it at me and said, "Say Cheese!" It took an inordinate amount of time to unhitch and unhook my freight train working with my new acquaintances. I swear they knew nothing about anything that needed doing. Oh, they learned quickly enough, but I still had to show and explain every step of the procedure. Telling them to do something as simple as unhooking the reins from the bridles was met with blank stares and shrugged shoulders. We were finally situated though, and after a quick lesson on use of the reins and foot brake, we were in business. I led the way with my biggest wagon and a team of six. Sonja was seated beside me giving me directions to where their possessions were. Jonathan followed driving a four mule hitch while Helena and Coleen brought up the rear driving a four hitch as well. A pair of mules ambled along on a lead behind each wagon. We traveled south across the flat portion of the pass until we reached the southern ridgeline. Half way up the first ridge we stopped and Sonja hopped off the wagon seat. Jonathan set the brake on his wagon and joined her in moving a pile of brush. The brush pile hid the door-sized entrance to a small cave. I offered to help them with their baggage but Sonja waved me off and they loaded everything into Jonathan's wagon. As with everything else about these people, I had never laid eyes on baggage such as they carried. There were a number of large sea chests made of that silvery metal, a few smaller metal valises and four large packs made of a shiny cloth like satin or silk. When we were back on the road I could not contain my curiosity any longer. "How did you end up in that cave and what is in those strange chests?" I asked. Sonja's answers were vague. "Someone dropped us off at the cave; it was as close as they could bring us towards where we need to go. The chests contain equipment we will need to recover what is on the mountain you call Evil Spirit. I can't tell you more than that." I pulled back on the reins and halted my wagon. "I will not be a party to anything illegal, Miss Ferrens, no matter how much you pay me." Sonja hastened to assure me that they had no nefarious plans. "What we are doing is legal, Mister Brock and it is vital to us in a way you couldn't imagine. You said no one goes up on that mountain so we aren't taking anything that belongs or is of any use to anyone else." I took her at her word, although I planned on keeping a close eye on what they brought back from up there. If she was telling the truth I would make a nice profit from the trip, if she was lying, I could leave whenever I wanted. I was also staying because I was fascinated by these unusual folks and I wanted to learn more about them. With that in mind I casually questioned Sonja as we made our way back across the pass and up into the foot hills. Sonja did not refuse outright to answer any of my questions but, again, her answers were vague and evasive. When I asked where she was from she told me they hailed from a place called Paradise Valley over in California. Her reply to my question about her and her companion's names was a little more forthcoming. "Our middle names reflect our enhanced genome heritage, I am of Scandinavian descent so my middle name is Scanda, Jonathan's ancestors were Chinese, so he's a Chin. Helena's Greek so she's part of the Mediterranean subset or Medi for short. Coleen is Scot-Irish so she's a Celt." I had never heard of anything like that, including some of the words she used, but then again, it was a big world and I had not seen much of it. I had a bushel more questions but I kept them to myself for the time being. When I had been quiet for a few minutes, Sonja started asking me questions. She wanted to know all about my life. I gave her an unvarnished version of my life story starting with my youth in Georgia. I omitted anything that seemed boastful but she hung on my every word nonetheless. When I finished my tale she looked at me in wonder. "You've done all that and you are only twenty-two?" she asked incredulously. I explained to her that I had trouble staying in one place for long; wanderlust was how my Ma described it. She asked me about the war and I truthfully told her that it had been brutality on an unimaginable scale. Her next statement was another bit of bizarreness. "Where we are from taking another person's life is a concept we can't even contemplate," she said with a shudder. My eyebrows climbed to the top of my head at that statement. "Ah, you must be Quakers; I was wondering why you were not carrying weapons. This is a very dangerous place even if you have the Lord on your side." I said. Sonja looked perplexed for a few seconds then she pulled a small black thing out of her pack and started tapping on it with a small whittled black stick. She frowned at the small black thing for a few seconds before she said, "We aren't Mennonites, Jeb but we do share their views on nonviolence." She put the black thing away and fished a funny looking gun from the pack. "We can defend ourselves if necessary, though. These stunners aren't lethal but will incapacitate a man for up to three hours." I gave her a dubious look but did not dispute what she said. It was beginning to occur to me that the whole bunch of these folks were as crazy as loons. I stopped for the day in a dell beside a small spring fed pond. We were about twenty-five miles from our destination. I figured we would be there by noon two days hence. Once again everyone pitched in to help me with the mules. With all that help it was short work before the mules were hobbled and contentedly grazing on the sweet summer grass. Once the animals were situated, my new acquaintances broke out their packs and pulled out some of the most fanciful tentage and bedrolls I have ever seen. They put up a tent big enough to hold all of them in fewer than ten minutes and then each laid out a rolled up pad that seemed to swell as it sat on the ground. Over the pads went one piece, folded in half bedrolls that they carried into the tent. I observed all their amazing activity while I was building a fire and hauling out my own more modest bedding. I did not comment on their tent and sleeping gear figuring I had acted the hick enough for one day. I had the fire banked down to some nice coals for cooking in about thirty minutes. I set my coffee pot on a rock amidst the coals and stuck my frying pan next to it. I threw a few pieces of 'streak of lean' salt pork into the frying pan, sat my bean pot off to the edge of the coals to heat up and unwrapped the last of the biscuits Ma packed for me. I figured if we ate lightly I had enough for a meal for all of us. Tomorrow I would need to hunt us up some meat but I had plenty of cornmeal and beans in my wagon. I made a mean sweet johnnycake if I have to say so myself. My guests were looking at me in awe as I set about making us supper, it was as if they had never seen anyone trail cook before. "It is probably not what you are used to but it will stick to your ribs," I said with a grin. Sonja gave me an embarrassed smile. "We have food of our own Jeb, but it is sweet of you to offer to share yours with us. All we really need is to heat up some water." I shrugged my shoulders and nodded. I figured that if their food was like everything else of theirs, my meager rations would not much interest them. Helena went into the tent and returned with a shiny gallon pot. She walked over to where the spring burbled out of the ground, filled the pot and brought it back to the fire. She sat the pot on the edge of the coals and smiled over at me. Her teeth were as perfect as Sonja's. "This will take a while to boil so I'm going to clean up some before night. It will need to boil for three minutes to kill any microbes, will you take it off the fire after that for me?" she asked. I told her no problem and she sashayed back to their tent. I was looking into the pot trying to see the microbe things she was boiling when all four of my clients traipsed out of their tent and headed over to the small pond. I did not give them another thought until I looked up from my cooking just as they started shucking off their clothes, casual as you please. I was agog as they stripped down to what I guessed was underwear in their neck of the woods. The women ended up in little bandana type things across their upper chests and all four of them had some sort of white loin cloths around their most private parts. They waded out into the pond until the water was above their knees and then they hooted and whooped about how cold the water was as they scrubbed at themselves with a cloth. I will not for a minute sit here and tell you that I modestly looked away from the bathing women. The truth of the matter is that I looked at them long and hard. I mean if they were going to flaunt themselves, I figured it was my manly duty to appreciate what they flaunted. Whatever they fed those women out there in California sure did suit them. All three of them were sleek, long legged and well rounded. Jonathan was of the same general body type as the women, except he had broader shoulders and narrower hips. They were thoroughbreds to my mule. It was a wonder to me that their facial features were so different while their bodies were so alike. I do not know how long I had been rapturously staring when I noticed Sonja looking right back at me. She had an amused little smile on her lips. She gave me a bawdy wink and called out, "Come on in Jeb, the water is nice once you are used to it." I blushed and shook my head as I busied myself with my cooking. "I would love too," I fibbed, "but my food is almost done and your water is boiling." They dressed and dragged out these fabric and metal folding camp stools. The stools were similar to the canvas and wood one I used. The ones they had, though, were incredibly light weight and compact. I was amazed they did not collapse as soon as someone sat on them. Their food was more near magic to me. It was in these little packages of tough clear paper like material that did not even leak when boiling water was poured in them. I was becoming suspicious at the number of things new to me that these folks kept hauling out of their baggage. I asked about the strange food as we sat around the fire eating. Sonja told me it was prepared by 'freeze-drying' to remove the moisture from it. She even let me taste some of her meal. It was a bland sort of chicken and rice dish with corn and peas. Sonja's explanation did not really satisfy my curiosity because she had not shared much information past whatever freeze-dying was, so I pressed on with my questions. "Most of the things you are using I have never seen or even heard of. It seems to me that you folks could make a lot of money selling this stuff. Why are you not doing just that?" As usual, Sonja answered my question. I could not help but notice that is the way it was unless I specifically asked someone else. "We have never needed anything from outside the valley before, Jeremiah. This is the first trip to here anyone from our home has ever taken. If we didn't desperately need the Hawkingium we would never have ventured here." I will be hanged if about every other word out of her mouth was new to me. "Hawkingium?" She nodded and pointed towards Evil Spirit Mountain. "Hawkingium is a very rare metal. Most of it known to exist is up there." It seemed as if every answer Sonja provided brought ten more questions to my mind. They remained questions unasked, though, as I did not want to appear any dumber than I was. After our meals we all lounged around the fire letting our food digest as if we were lizards. As soon as I finished my coffee I went to my wagon and pulled out my fiddle and bow. I almost skipped the exercise thinking my sophisticated guests would find my playing laughable. In the end I did it anyway because it was my normal evening routine and I was doing it for my pleasure, not theirs. I sat cross legged in front of the fire with a sheet of music in my lap and dragged the bow across the strings of my violin as I warmed up my fingers. The four Californians looked at me in silence as I ran through the music once. I was attempting Bach's Violin Sonata Number 2 in A minor and it was a vexingly difficult piece for me. They applauded politely when I finished and Sonja said, "We enjoy classical music at home Jeremiah, but we'd really like to hear some popular music from this time." It struck me funny how she said "from this time" but I knew what she meant. I stood up, tucked my fiddle under my chin and was about to cut loose when Jonathan leaped up also. "Hold on a minute," he said. "I want to record this." I looked at him in confusion but held my peace as he dashed into the tent. He emerged a minute later with the little silver box he'd been pointing at everyone earlier. He sat the thing on the ground near my feet and gave me a nod. I played them Old Zip Coon (Turkey in the Straw) to start, then, since they were tapping their toes, I ran through Sally Goodin as fast as my fingers would fly. They seemed to enjoy my playing very much. In fact, Jonathan would have kept me sawing on my fiddle all night if I had let him. I played for about half an hour and played the song that I always ended my sessions at home with ... I played I Wish I Was in Dixie. I did not like it that they stayed seated while I played Dixie, but California had been a Yankee state during the war so I did not say anything. The women all told me how much they enjoyed my performance but Jonathan was beside himself with pleasure as he snatched up his little silver box. "Wait until my colleagues hear this!" he exclaimed as he made a beeline for the tent. I looked at Sonja inquisitively. She smiled at me and shrugged her shoulders. "Jonathan is a cultural anthropologist. Music like you play hasn't been heard where we are from in a long time." Cultural anthropologist was a mouthful of syllables with no meaning to me. I swear that Sonja and her friends had an entire vocabulary that was incomprehensible that way. Once again I hid my ignorance by nodding sagely. "I see," I said as if I really did. Then I tactfully changed the subject in a direction I was curious about. "Jonathan is a lucky man sharing a tent with three women as beautiful as you all." Sonja looked at me as if I had sprouted horns and then all three of the women burst out laughing. Finally, Coleen stopped guffawing long enough to tell me, "Jonathan is gay, Jeb, and is in a committed relationship back home." I looked at her dumbly as I could not understand what was so funny about Jonathan being happy and having a wife at home. Sonja saw my problem and explained, "Jonathan doesn't like women; his life partner is another man." My jaw dropped open and in disbelief. "He is a sodomite? I would have never guessed it; he sure does not act like a poof." Sonja gave me her first disproving look. "In our society it is a life style choice Jeremiah, nothing more and nothing less. I will be disappointed if our telling you something we should have kept to ourselves causes you to treat him badly." I assured her that it would not and we all trudged off to our bedrolls. I lay awake a long time that night thinking of how little I must know of the world if a place like Paradise Valley existed and I had never heard a breath of it. I awoke the next morning more comfortable with Sonja and her cohorts. After sleeping on it, I decided that for all their marvelous equipment, wealth and knowledge, they were just people like everyone else. Heck, I felt even better because, despite everything, they needed me. I was up with the rising sun, restarted my cooking fire from last night's hot coals and tended my mules while my coffee brewed. I had all the teams hitched; my face washed and shaved; and was on my second cup when they finally rolled out of their beds. They took my good natured teasing about sleeping the day away well. They even shared a laugh about being tired from all the traveling they did the day before. "It seemed as if we went a thousand miles," Coleen said. "And about four hundred years," Helena giggled. A night's sleep sure did not make them any less strange, I mused, as we mounted the wagons and headed out. We rolled along making unspectacular but steady progress through the morning. As we rode, I quizzed Sonja about their home again. She described a green and tranquil valley of farms that surrounded a small city that was the home of one of the best universities in the world. She made the place sound as if it were a Garden of Eden filled with selfless people devoted to peace. As much as I wanted to believe her, I knew enough about the world to take that description with a very large grain of salt. I did allow that I would like to visit her home one day. Sonja gave me a speculative look and said, "That might be a good idea, Jeremiah, because we might need a man of your talents soon." Sonja and her friends found out how unlike this place was compared to their home shortly after our nooning. We were about eighteen miles away from our destination when we caught sight of a dozen mounted Indian braves watching us from the top of a small hill a little over half a mile to our left front. I had a bad feeling about their intentions because a dozen braves was too many to be a hunting party and too few to be a tribe on the move. The only thing left for them to be was a war party. I eased my wagon to a halt and held up my hand to stop the wagons behind me. Sonja looked at me in alarm as I reached into the foot well and pulled out my Spencer Carbine. She started to say something when half of the braves came thundering off the hill headed straight for us. ------- Chapter 11 The first group of braves had traveled about a hundred yards when the second group flew off the hill behind them. I knew enough about the Indian's ways by now to know that they were not heading towards us to engage in polite conversation. I leapt off the wagon seat down in between my mules and yanked the lynchpin that held the double tree to the wagon's tongue, then ducked under the wheel mule and grabbed my Spenser. I kept my voice calm as I addressed Sonja. "Get everyone over here under this wagon; we have big trouble brewing," I said. Sonja did not hesitate for a second as she athletically hopped off the wagon and sprinted back to round up her companions. I ran to the front of my team, grabbed Zeke's halter and started him moving. "Go on Zeke, get out of the way," I hollered. Zeke followed the direction of my pull and the rest of the team followed him as he ambled in an arc toward the last wagon. All of this activity took longer to tell about than to accomplish. The Indians had only closed half the distance towards us by the time my clients were under my wagon and my mules were out of harms way. I was grimly aware that this was the worst situation I had ever been in as I grabbed my saddle bag, shotgun and Enfield and slid under the wagon with my wide-eyed clients. I controlled my fear and took a prone position behind one of the wagon wheels. "What do they want Jeremiah?" Sonja asked, her voice amazingly calm. "Maybe if you gave it to them they'd go away." I had to laugh at that, in spite of our precarious situation. I told her what I had figured out as soon as I saw the glint of sunlight reflecting off a spyglass the leader of the braves was using right before he sent the first wave forward. "I guess I could do that Sonja, except that you are what they want. You, Helena and Coleen are the only things of value to them I have with me." Sonja gave me a startled look as the implication of what I said sunk in. Yet she still kept her composure. "Oh," she gasped, "so what do we do now?" I told her to keep low and behind the wagon wheels as much as possible, and hope that I could make the proposition too costly for the Indians. "And prayer would not hurt," I added. She nodded and pulled out her odd little pistol. I had forgotten all about them. I asked her there range and was disappointed to hear that it was only effective out to twenty-five to thirty feet. I shrugged and drew a bead on one of the braves advancing towards us. They were within a couple of hundred yards now and riding low over the necks of their ponies. I did not let that deter me though, and shot the horse out from under the first rider. I figure that if an Indian survived the fall, he would still be easier to deal with on foot. I worked the lever to load another round in the Spencer and cocked the hammer again. Another shot and another horse fell, I managed to hit one rider and five horses before the seven shot Spencer was empty. I tossed the now useless rifle aside and pulled my revolver. I tried to remain calm as I lay there, even as the second line of horses and three Indians on foot swarmed toward me. I cocked the Colt and fired it rhythmically; my objective was to kill as many of the braves as I could before they overwhelmed us. I made a good accounting of the five rounds that were in my pistol, and had actually managed to eliminate the first group of braves just as the second wave galloped up. The second wave of Indians were hanging off the far side of their mounts as they thundered by, it was an amazing feat of horsemanship that they were able to loose a volley of arrows and two rifle shots at us as they passed. I can attest that the volley was aimed because one of the arrows sunk into my left forearm and one of the bullets ricocheted off the iron wheel rim next to my head and cut a groove above my right ear. The arrow in my arm made me drop the spare cylinder I was desperately trying to install in my Colt, and the bullet that grazed me had my head buzzing, but I still managed to pick up my coach gun one-handed and thumb back one hammer. I figured that I would take one more of the Indians to hell with me, when suddenly the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stood on end, and the Indians riding by tumbled from their mounts as if they were rag dolls cast aside by bored children. Amazingly, the horses the braves were riding kept on running, unaffected by the weird little weapons my clients wielded. I was whispering a silent prayer for our miraculous delivery, when a keening wail caused me to jerk my head around. The sudden movement made me woozy, but my lethargy cleared instantly when I saw a sobbing Coleen crawling towards Jonathan, the shaft and fetch of an arrow protruding obscenely from his right eye socket. My feeling of euphoria for the miracle of our survival was short lived as Coleen somberly pronounced Jonathan dead. It turns out that Coleen was the little party's doctor. She was a fine one too, with a satchel full of marvelous equipment and potions that had me fixed up and feeling as if I were slightly inebriated in only a few minutes. She pricked me with a pin that had a glass vial attached to it, cut the arrowhead out of my arm with a small blade and sewed me up with stitches that were as perfect as the ones that ma's new Singer sewing machine made. Coleen even patched up three of the five Indians who were still alive. She expertly set two broken arms and removed one of my bullets from the shoulder of another. I put the two uninjured men to work digging graves for their brothers. The three women took Jonathan's body and held a private burial for him. I offered to make a marker for his grave but they were firm about leaving it unmarked. "There is no need to draw attention to the fact that he was here," Sonja said. "Instead, we'll hold a memorial for him when we return home." We tied our Indian prisoners to the wheels of the wagons and took turns standing guard over them throughout the night. The women insisted on feeding them and treating them humanely, even after the savage attack. The women were sad and subdued, but adamant about continuing the trip up to Evil Spirit Mountain. They did not put up their fancy tent for the night. Instead, we all slept around the fire. Two of us were awake at all times. Helena was my watch partner and the two of us talked quite a bit as we tended the fire and kept an eye on our prisoners. Helena was very distraught over Jonathan's death. She told me that he was the first person she'd ever seen die from violence. I ended up holding Helena most of the night as she cried on my shoulder. I did some thinking while Helena leaned against me, her body occasionally wracked with sobs. I thought how strange it was that a woman my age had never been exposed to death. Then I started thinking about myself. Had I become callus towards visits by the Grim Reaper? Not yet, I finally decided, and never if I could help it. I was determined to keep my humanity and not truckle to the devil. Once I decided that, lord help me if my thoughts did not turn unbidden to the woman I held cradled in my good arm. Despite all that had happened on this miserable day, my manhood decided to tell me in no uncertain terms that I was sitting next to one heck of a desirable woman. To make matters worse, Helena had her hand resting on my thigh as she leaned against me. I squirmed in uncomfortable embarrassment when little Johnny Reb Jeb decided to pitch a tent in my Levi Strauss half overalls. Helena drew away when I shifted around, and looked at me in concern. Her brown eyes looked absolutely huge in the flickering firelight. "Am I hurting your arm, Jeremiah?" she asked. I mumbled a negative reply as I blushed a scarlet brighter than our campfire. I guess that would have been the end of it if Helena had not looked down at my left hand where it rested on my other thigh. Between her hand and mine, rose a teepee that would have done a Shoshone Chief proud. Helena's eyebrows arched up, her mouth dropped opened in surprise and she let out a small "eek". I moved both my hands over my shame and tried to apologize. She shushed me with a finger over my lips, "It's okay, Jeremiah. I was just surprised because it is the first spontaneous erection I've ever seen. I completely forgot that was still possible here. Actually, I am most flattered." I was too mortified to let her know I had no idea what she was babbling about. I was less confused when she leaned against my shoulder with her firm bosom and gently pulled my hands off my staff. She looked down at the lump and then back up at me. She had a strange gleam in her eye and when she spoke, her voice was breathy and husky. "Let me see it, Jeremiah," she whispered. Her voice was so seductive I did not think twice about not doing what she wanted. I immediately started wrestling with the fasteners of my Levi Strausses. I fumbled around some, but finally managed to fish my pride and joy out the slit in my long johns. When I moved my hand off him, Helena gave a little gasp. "You are not circumcised," she hissed. "And it's so large." I had never heard the word 'circumcised' before, but I was pleased she thought me to be well endowed. She reached out as if to touch me, then looked up at me questioningly. When I nodded, she took me in her long slender fingers and lightly explored. She was fascinated with my foreskin for some reason, and kept pulling it down to expose more of my crown. "I've never felt one with this extra skin," she said, "all our men are circumcised at birth." I winced when it dawned on me that this circumcised of which she was speaking seemed to refer to removing the foreskin. Well, needless to say, that little conversation cured the object that provoked it. Jeb Junior wilted like boiled greens. I might have imagined it, but Helena seemed disappointed about the turn of events. In any event, the spell was broken. Helena gave me a soft kiss and trundled off to wake our relief. The following morning, we set the Indians free as soon as we broke camp. I felt no remorse for leaving the Indians without horses or weapons, as I knew they would find a way to survive. I was hoping that my strange California clients and I could do the same. The women were somber and subdued, but they were determined to continue with whatever it was they had planned up on Evil Spirit. I had serious doubts about the whole enterprise by now, but Georgia Jeb did not quit a job he hired on to do. So I kept my doubts to myself as I clucked old Zeke into action. Coleen had insisted on riding with me when we moved out so she could keep an eye on my wounds. I told her I was as fit as a fiddle, thanks to her doctoring, but she would brook no argument from me. As we plodded along, I thought about my conversation with Helena the evening before. I figured Coleen could give me some unvarnished information about it, her being a doctor and all. "Uh, Miss Coleen, I hate to be indelicate, but I have some questions about this circumcise that your men folk have afflicted on them," I said. Coleen gave a bubbly laugh and told me that Helena had made her and Sonja privy to our conversation. "It is no big deal, Jeremiah. It is done when the men are infants, for hygienic reasons mostly, although it also desensitizes the penis, which helps in the overall lessening of the male's sexual and social aggressiveness." I leaned back with a grunt after she spewed that mouthful of malarkey. Until I met these bizarre folks, I had thought I was a fairly well read and knowledgeable man. Yet, for about the hundredth time, one of them said something of which I understood not one word. Coleen might as well have been speaking Greek. I asked her to clarify what she said, but she refused. "I've probably said too much already. If you want to know anything else, you need to ask Sonja." We arrived at the base of Evil Spirit Mountain at two in the afternoon. We set up camp and I tended my mules, while the women prepared for the next day. I watched with interest as they pulled the shiny trunks from the wagon and started checking their equipment. Most of the items I caught sight of appeared to be gussied up standard prospector's equipment. I recognized shovels, pick axes and rock hammers, even though the items were made of some dull looking metal and had folding handles. One item I did not recognize was another of those small shiny metal boxes that Helena dug out of one of the trunks. The box had a couple of gauges on it, not unlike the pressure gauges on the boiler of Captain Pritchett's riverboat. Helena pressed a lever on the box and it began emitting a sound that reminded me of a chicken clucking. She swung the box around to point it at the mountain and the clucking grew louder and faster. "The radiation signature from up there is huge but I'm still reading a sine wave that is text book for Hawkingium!" Helena exclaimed excitedly. For some reason, her proclamation made the other women smile and nod. I spent thirty minutes getting my mules situated for the night, then the women and I walked around and collected some deadfall from the sparse local vegetation to start a fire. The trees down here at the base of the mountain were stunted, twisted and gnarled. They were covered with tumors and had wart-like growths on them, as if they were all infected with some sort of disease. Once we had a nice cooking fire crackling away, I took the time to study the mountain that loomed above us. Evil Spirit was a jagged looking peak that appeared as if someone had blasted about half of the eastern face away. Sonja came over to stand by me as I surveyed the rough scrabble slope. "A large meteor hit this mountain about two hundred years before now. The meteor contained an element not found on earth. The element has some amazing qualities that we desperately need back where we are from. We traveled an impossible distance by a means never before attempted, just to collect a few pounds of it," Sonja said. I had to wonder why the metal was so important, but I did not ask. I was hired help for these unusual folks and they were paying me good money. I figured if they wanted me to know, they would simply tell me. I did ask one question though, because I was concerned about them bringing something off that mountain that would harm me or my mules. "How are you going to bring that stuff off the mountain if it is so dangerous that no one can live near it?" I asked. Sonja was quick to reply. "Hawkingium is not dangerous. The problem is that when the meteor hit, it somehow set off a small thermonuclear explosion. Prolonged exposure to the radiation still present from that explosion is what causes the sickness people who come here suffer." I tried to look as if I understood even one or two of the words she spouted, as once again I had no idea what she was saying. Californian was sure a different dialect from the normal English that I was used to hearing. At least I understood the part about what they were returning with not being dangerous, and that eased my mind a bushel and a peck. It took the California women an hour to put their kit together for tomorrow. After that, they joined me around the fire while I cooked my evening meal. I decided to cook up some Johnny Cakes. I had saved the ingredients for the cakes from the supplies Ma had sent with me for the trip. I usually made the cakes on my last night on the trail, which would have been this night anyway, had I not run up on my new clients. Like I said before, I make a mean Johnny Cake. I put my big skillet in the fire with some fatback while I mixed the ingredients. The women watched in awe as I fished a couple of cackle berries carefully packed in hay out of my wagon, and pulled a corked bottle of buttermilk out of my water barrel. I cracked open the eggs and stirred them up with the buttermilk. When I had a nice fluffy mix, I added a couple of cups of cornmeal and half a cup of sugar. I fried the cakes up in the grease from the fatback and slathered them up in cane syrup from a small jug I carried. I was pleased as punch when Sonja asked if she could try one of the cakes and grinned like Zeke eating an apple when she raved about how good it was to the other women. Both Coleen and Helena enthusiastically seconded her opinion when they each tried one. After dinner, we all sat around the fire and talked for a while as the sun dropped rapidly to the west. The women were much more direct in their questioning now, and some of the questions were quite personal. They seemed to be very interested in how relations between men and women in this part of the country worked. Their questions confused me somewhat, because as far as I knew, relations between men and women were the same everywhere. On this night I learned that, according to my guests, things were astonishingly different in Paradise Valley, California. I haltingly but honestly replied to their questions about my relationships with women. I think the concept that caused them the most problems was that men and women here had sexual relations whenever the mood struck them. I asked why that idea seemed so foreign to them, and Sonja answered me. "Where we are from, Jeremiah, there is no casual sex, even between married people. We learned long ago that men's sexual nature was a symptom of their destructive over aggressiveness. It took decades for our medical science to find a way to alter that, but now our men's bodies don't produce the chemical triggers that lead to sexual arousal, violent behavior and combative competitiveness," she said. My jaw dropped open in amazement at her matter of fact little speech, because, even discounting the weird combination of words she used, this time I understood what she said. "You geld your men!" I yipped. Coleen jumped into the conversation then and said, "We don't geld them, Jeremiah, they still have all their reproductive equipment. However, in order to achieve an erection, they must take a certain medicine and those meds are strictly controlled." I was struck speechless. Of all the strangeness associated with these Californians, this last little bit took the cake. When I found my voice, I told them what I thought of all that. "Your men folk might not be physically gelded, but they have lost there manhood nonetheless," I sputtered. The women took issue with what I said, but they were preaching to a deaf choir. I did not accept for a second the idea that their men were actually better off, because what they termed 'self destructive' behavior was no longer present. Finally I had heard enough. "Why not put them out of their misery and get yourselves one of them fancy French lap dogs instead," I growled as I stalked off to fetch my fiddle. The rest of the evening was uneventful until bedtime. I decided that we needed to keep watch again that night, so we used the same teams as the night before. As soon as the other women were abed, Helena snuggled up next to me by the flickering remnants of the cooking fire. I could tell she was still thinking about our encounter of the night before, when out of the blue, she asked, "What does a woman have to do to cause you to become erect?" I chuckled at her question, but answered her truthfully. "Sometimes, not much at all, it depends on the woman, I reckon." Then I upped the ante. "For instance, every time I am near you, I get aroused." Helena's brown eyes opened wide at that and she smiled as if the thought did not displease her in the least. Then she frowned in concentration. "What do you do when that happens so regularly Jeremiah? Surely you can't procreate every time it happens." I was struck afresh at how little these very educated women knew about the most basic matters. "It depends on the situation, Sweetie Pie. Sometimes my little friend gets what he wants, but most of the time he simply goes back to sleep." She digested that tidbit of information and asked another question. "What of the woman that arouses you? What if she is not ready for intercourse?" As she was talking, Helena seemed to be having trouble sitting still. I had a fair idea by now exactly what was causing that. I suppressed a smile and continued her education. "If she is not ready, he goes back to sleep again, simple as that. I would never force myself on a woman, even if I were married to her. But sometimes a woman might want to accommodate her man. In those cases, there are ways to help a woman get ready. Being a healthy young woman, I cannot imagine you not knowing that." As soon as those words were out of my mouth, I realized where she was from that might not be the case. "How do relations between a man and woman work out there in California anyway?" I asked. Another question, another astounding answer. "In our time, women select a potential partner and apply to the high council for a script for the libido drug. The application must contain a genetic profile of the potential partner. If the application is approved, the woman receives a month's supply of four doses of the medicine. She administers the meds to her partner and they couple. She can refill her prescription monthly, as long as she is with that same partner. If the couple split up, the prescription is cancelled." The parts of her speech I understood were by far the dangdest things I had ever heard. Two things she said caught my attention. One was the four times a month limit, the other I asked her about. "What did you mean when you said 'in our time'?" I asked. Helena looked startled at my question and stammered a reply. "I meant at our home in California." Her answer sounded fishy, but I did not pursue it, because Helena's flushed skin and erratic breathing indicated that she was as attracted to me as I was to her. I figure the way to make my point was by demonstration rather than explanation. I told Helena as much, "Let me show you what I am talking about. If anything I do bothers you, tell me and I will stop. Is that all right with you?" I had Helena in my arms, my lips fused to hers, before her head completed the first affirmative nod. In fewer than five minutes, Helena and I were on top of my bedroll, naked as the day we were born. Even with my gimpy left arm, everything was going along swimmingly and I was as aroused as I had ever been in my life. I quickly brought her to her peak with my fingers and tongue and was about to join with her when someone yanked me off her by the hair of my head. I landed heavily on my side and started to scramble to my feet, when a bolt of lightning hit me and turned my muscles to mush. I vaguely heard Helena scream out, "NOOO!" before my world turned black. ------- Chapter 12 I woke up some time later. My mind swam up out of a fog and I was instantly alert. My eyes sprang open, but when I tried to move it was as if I was mired in quicksand. I was lying on my back with my head cradled on something soft. My legs were out straight and my arms were at my sides. I did not appear to be tied up; instead, it was as if all my limbs were asleep. I twitched just then as my muscles were starting to come back to life. The second time I twitched, Helena's head loomed over mine upside down. After a moment of confusion, I realized that my head was in her lap and she was bending over, looking at my face. I smacked my lips together and finally collected enough moisture in my mouth to talk. "What happened?" I managed to croak. "I am so sorry, Jeremiah," she moaned. "My crying out in passion woke up Sonja and Coleen. They came running out of the tent and saw you on top of me. They thought you were attacking me, so Sonja knocked you off me and Coleen zapped you with her stunner." I could not help snorting in laughter. "It was you attacking me as I remember it," I said. "Where are those two anyway? I think I want a word with them about jumping to conclusions about me." I was not really angry, because the other women had done the right thing and defended their friend. The stunner had not harmed me in the least, but my left arm smarted some from where I fell on it. Helena giggled and told me that the other women were in their tent, too embarrassed to face me. I grinned at that and sat up; I was feeling better by the second. I kicked the blanket off my still naked body and stood up to dress. "Go get those desperados while I dress, please: it is their guard shift anyway," I said. Sonja and Coleen shuffled out of their tent a few minutes later, both looking chagrined. I shushed them before they could apologize. "I think we are all embarrassed enough about tonight without rehashing it. I say let sleeping dogs lie." Everyone agreed to that immediately, so I grabbed my bedroll and went to sleep under my wagon, while Sonja and Coleen took up station around the fire. The next morning I was up with the sun as usual. I sent Sonja and Coleen to bed to get a few hours sleep before their big day, while I tended my animals and made coffee. I was a bit surprised when both women kissed me before they disappeared into their tent. I was surprised, but not in the least displeased. The women from California might be unusual, but they were all attractive and smart; it was a combination I had always found irresistible. All three women were up and stirring around by nine. Sonja joined me by the fire. She declined my offer of a cup of coffee, but did ask for a sip of mine. I could not help grinning at the face she made after taking a gulp. "That's disgusting," she blurted. I shrugged and took my cup back. We sat in companionable silence for a minute or two before Sonja spoke again. "Jeremiah, I know it is not what we originally agreed to, but with Jonathan gone, we need your help today." I was not thrilled with the idea of going up on the mountain, but I figured that if the women felt safe doing it, I could at least listen to what Sonja wanted. "What do you want me to do?" I asked. Sonja told me her plan and it did not seem foolishly dangerous, so I signed on to it. Sonja wanted to take a wagon closer to the mountain so that she and Helena would not have as far to tote their equipment. I hitched up Zeke and three other mules to the smallest wagon and the women and I loaded four of their trunks on to it. We rode for about a mile; all the while Helena's silver box kept chirping and clicking. I was beginning to hear a pattern to the noise the box made as it clicked faster, the closer we advanced to the mountain. After that first mile, Helena dismounted the wagon and walked about fifty feet in front of us. We were almost at the base of the mountain when Helena signaled me to stop. She took one last look at her strange device and walked back to us. "I'm reading two gray unit of radiation here, so this is as far as we are going unprotected. Anyone going further than that large square rock will need to be in full protective gear and wearing a dosimeter," she said. After we dragged the metal chests off the wagon, the women flipped them open and started pulling out these shiny metallic cloth garments. The garments looked as if they were silver union suits with built in boots. Sonja and Helena unselfconsciously stripped down to their unmentionables and wriggled into the suits. As if the suits were not strange enough, both women then hooked a half circle looking thing over the tops of their heads. The thing covered one of their ears, had a curved twig like appendage that went from their ear to the front of their mouths and a part that looked like a spool of thread with a glass front. The spool looking thing gave the women the appearance of having three eyes. They next donned hoods made of the same shiny material. The hoods covered their heads and fastened to the suit at their shoulders. The front part of the hood was made of some sort of flexible clear glass, the likes of which I had never seen. They topped off the bizarre outfits with long gauntlet-like gloves. While Sonja and Helena were busy with the suits, Coleen placed a smaller case on top of one of the big ones. The lid of the small case hinged up. The part that opened was mostly a black rectangle, while the bottom had some buttons on it with letters of the alphabet stamped onto them. I jumped back in alarm when the black rectangle came to life, showing a picture of Coleen and me. When I jumped, so did the Jeremiah in the picture. Coleen saw me jump and gave me a gentle, reassuring smile. "Relax, Jeremiah, it's nothing to harm you. I'll explain it all later," she said softly. I nodded dumbly as Helena and Sonja turned and the picture changed to a view towards the mountain. Right then I knew that there was much more to all this than I had even imagined before. I knew that because, up until the strange picture I was seeing, all of the Californians' marvels could be explained as something similar to, although much better than, things I had seen before. Not now though, and especially not after what happened next. Coleen slipped a device over her head that was similar to the one Helena and Sonja wore, minus the spool with the glass front, and started talking. "I have two good video feeds, Sonja, now let's do a comm check." she said. By now, Sonja and Helena were at least fifty yards away, too far to hear Coleen's voice, I thought. So much for what I thought, because suddenly Sonja's slightly echoed voice spoke out of the machine that I was looking at. "Good. I hear you loud and clear. Do you have radio also, Helena?" Helena's voice jumped out of the machine too. "Roger," she said. Sonja and Helena disappeared from our view a few minutes later. When we were alone, Coleen tried to explain what I was seeing. Her explanation did not help me at all, because I could not find a frame of reference for what she was saying. Until thirty minutes ago, the telegraph was the most sophisticated communication system in the world as I knew it. Now I was privy to something that not only sent your voice from one place to another, it sent your picture too. What I was seeing was impossible, yet here I stood, watching it happen. It was either real or I had finally slipped into insanity. While I was hashing all this out in my mind, Coleen was watching me closely. I realized that she was afraid that I would do something irrational. I gave her a reassuring lopsided grin. "You ladies are full of surprises, but I think I know you well enough to trust you. Tell me you aren't witches and this isn't some witchery magic, and I will stay with you." Coleen laughed, threw her arms around my neck, and kissed me soundly. Her kiss almost made me forget all that happened that morning. She finally leaned back and looked into my eyes. She was tall enough that she did not have to look up that far. "You are an amazing man, Jeremiah; we've never met one like you. We were lucky beyond belief to have found you here. As far as witchcraft goes, if anyone here is casting any spells, it is you. How else can you explain all three of us being crazy about you in only four days?" I gave her another grin, slipped my hand down off her waist and cupped her shapely derriere. "I would be more flattered if I was not the only man you have met here in Wyoming, but I am not complaining one bit." Coleen laughed and squirmed out of my grasp. "Later big boy," she said. "Right now we have work to do." I loved making Coleen laugh. She was probably the best humored woman I had ever met. I sighed theatrically and nodded my head. She laughed again, grabbed my hand and pulled me over to one of the open metal chests. She was in the middle of telling me what we needed to do next, when she held up her hand to shush me and cupped the other hand to the thing on her ear. She listened intently for a few seconds, then said, "I copy, Sonja, and I have the camera's recording." Coleen stopped talking and grabbed me in another tight hug. She sure was excited and she quickly told me why. "They've already found some Hawkingium. Helena says it's lying all over the place, instead of being buried as she thought it would be. Hurry up and help get this suit out so we can watch them on the monitor." I helped Coleen lay out another set of the shiny union suit, then sat beside her on one of the camp chairs and watched the incredible moving pictures on the small black rectangle. As I watched the picture in utter fascination, I noticed that Helena was talking the entire time. She was using that nearly indecipherable California dialect with many Latin sounding words thrown in. I glanced over at Coleen and whispered, "Who is she talking to?" Coleen pointed to the box with the picture on it. "She is narrating the video we are recording. What they have found up there will be of great interest to the scientists back home," she said. Coleen and I watched the small picture for another hour as Sonja and Helena found more pieces of the metal they sought. By then the novelty of the device was wearing thin, so I stood up and stretched. While I was up, Coleen asked me to place one of the trunks on the ground about thirty yards in front of us. After I completed that task, she had me fill this silver metal five gallon bucket with water from the barrel lashed to my wagon. The cover for the bucket had a pump handle and a small flexible tube mounted on it. I lugged the bucket over to where I placed the trunk. As soon as I sat the bucket on the ground, Coleen shouted to me that the other women were headed back. When I returned to where we had been sitting, Coleen stood up and started disrobing. I had to comment on how quick she and her friends were to do that. "You all are not very modest," I opined. Coleen draped her frock over the camp stool and turned to face me. "It's just a body, Jeremiah. Everyone alive has one just like it," she replied. I chuckled and shook my head. "I doubt if five percent of the women in the world are as desirable as you, Coleen," I said sincerely. Coleen had turned around and was picking up one of the shiny long john suits when I said that. She dropped the suit and spun around to face me. "What made you say that?" she squeaked. I looked into her big green eyes and told her, "Because it is true, Coleen. You are smart and beautiful, with an exceptionally well formed body. That is a devastating combination that all three of you share." Coleen looked at me wild-eyed. "No one has ever said anything like that to me. It makes me tingle thinking about it," she said with a sigh. I gave her a rueful grin. "Now you know how I feel when I am around any of you. I know that I should be running for the hills because of all the strangeness about you, yet here I am, smitten to the point where it does not matter a whit to me." Coleen smile so sweetly, it took my breath away. Then she reached up and patted my cheek. "We definitely need to finish this conversation, Jeremiah. But it is going to have to wait until this evening." As soon as she said that, she turned around and stepped into the legs of her shiny suit. I had to wonder about her getting dressed when the other women were headed back. When I asked her about it, she told me that she needed to be protected when she went out to meet Sonja and Helena. "They'll be covered in radioactive dust," she explained. Next time I was at the general store, I was going to order a California dictionary. I stood back by my wagon when Coleen met the other two women at the trunk and bucket I had placed out in front of us. Coleen pumped the handle on the bucket a few times and then rinsed off Sonja and Helena. She also rinsed off the smaller trunk Sonja and Helena had carried with them. They placed the small trunk inside the large one, then all three women quickly shucked out of the shiny suits, threw them into the big trunk, quickly closed the trunk's lid and fastened its latches. Helena and Sonja picked up the trunk by its handles, Coleen grabbed the bucket and all three of them, wearing nothing but their skimpy undergarments, headed back to where I was standing. They had to know I was ogling them, yet they seemed unconcerned with the attention. When they were dressed, we loaded the wagon and headed back to our camp. Sonja rode in the wagon seat with me, while Helena and Coleen sat in the back on top of one of the trunks. I asked Sonja if they had found enough of what they were seeking, or would we need to come back another day. "We found much more Hawkingium than we thought we'd find," she said excitedly. "It was strewn across the mountainside in large fragments, instead of being buried in the ground. I guess the explosive impact of the meteor tossed it back out of the earth. We were hoping to gather a couple of pounds, but ended up with ten times that much." It was late afternoon by the time we made it back to camp and unpacked the wagon. I tended my livestock then started a fire for the evening. The women were happy and cheerful and I could not help being caught up in their ebullient mood. We finished supper just after sunset. As soon as we cleaned up after the meal, I hustled over to my big wagon and pulled out my fiddle. While I was at it, I grabbed the bottle of tequila that I had tucked away for emergencies. I reckoned that a couple of shots of the fiery liquor would put the perfect cap on our successful day. I rejoined the women, poured us all a snort of loud mouth and proposed a toast. "Here is to the three most beautiful ladies I've ever met," I said. The women were all smiles until they took a taste of the tequila. "Yuck, that stuff is horrible!" Sonja sputtered. Coleen and Helena seconded Sonja's low opinion of my tequila, as I threw back my shot and felt it burn its way down my throat. "Yeah, it is nasty, but after a couple of glasses of it you will feel too good to notice the taste," I said. "Hang on a minute, I have something that will make you feel just as good, works quicker and won't burn out your esophagus," Coleen said as she jumped up and headed for their tent. Coleen returned with a little clear pouch of greenish looking tobacco and an ornate ivory pipe with a hinged silver cover. She packed the pipe full of the tobacco and lit it with a sulfur match. Coleen passed the pipe around peace-pipe style. When it reached me, she told me to take a big puff and hold it as long as I could. I did as she asked and by the time the pipe had passed by me twice, I felt as if I'd slugged down half a bottle of tequila. "What is this stuff?" I asked in awe. "It's Paradise Pride, an engineered cultivar of cannabis. Our agro engineers are especially proud of this variety, as it doesn't have a harsh bite to it," Coleen explained in Californese. I think that of all the wonderful things the women possessed, this sweet tasting tobacco was by far my favorite. When the women invited me to see the inside of their tent, I floated over to it as if I were a butterfly. Time took on this weird quality for me as it vacillated between speeding by and almost stopping. One minute we were laughing about some silly nothing, and the next we were weepy-eyed about poor Jonathan. I was wearing nothing except my long johns. The women were in their underwear as well; our outer garments were neatly folded on a camp chair outside the tent. Sonja was the one who instigated the disrobing by telling me that they would feel more comfortable in fewer clothes. I woke up the next morning to the first light of the rising sun. The first thing I noticed was that I did not have a hangover; the second was that I was lying on my side with my arm draped across someone. Someone else was pressed tightly against my back. I smiled as I extricated myself from between Sonja and Coleen, as I recalled everything from the evening before. It was the most interesting evening of conversation and good company I can ever remember having, and that includes the marvelous times I spent at Camille's in Boulder City. I enjoyed very much sitting in close quarters with the women as we talked. They made the evening even better for me because one or the other of them was continually touching me. As we sobered up from the strange tobacco, the conversation turned to me returning to California with them. They made a strong argument that had two branches. One was us staying together to explore the strong attraction I felt for them and they felt for me. The other was that they, most especially Sonja, thought I could be some help with a difficult situation their community faced. They would not tell me what the situation was, but promised to tell me before we departed, if I agreed. How could a man such as I refuse an offer for a new adventure with three beautiful women? Nothing sexual had transpired between any of the women and me during the night. The reason for that was none of this muleskinner's fault; I want to make that clear. Rather, we first had to, in Sonja's words, "work out the mechanics of our relationship." They told me plural relationships of all combinations were quite common in Paradise Valley, but none of those relationships had a sexual component as vibrant as we would have. That was why we had to 'communicate and be willing to renegotiate our expectations'. "After all," Sonja said, "you will be the only fully functioning male among the twenty-five thousand residents of the valley. What if other women want us to share you?" I swear, a platoon of Philadelphia lawyers could not think up more convoluted arguments than those three women. How was I supposed to respond to a statement of which I understood not one word? I had the fire burning nicely and my teams all hitched by the time the women dragged themselves out of the tent at seven. I teased them about sleeping their life away while they carped about my jumping out of our warm bed at such an ungodly hour. We were packed up and on the trail by eight that morning. We made excellent time traveling, and arrived back at their little cave on the third evening after departing Evil Spirit Mountain. The nights in between were spent most pleasurably as we became better acquainted with each other. To my huge disappointment, we still had not consummated our new relationship by the time we were back at there little cavern near South Pass. We fooled around plenty, and I was able to demonstrate many of the things the other women in my life had taught me, but intercourse was a no-no. "We can't risk becoming pregnant, at least not until you have been given a complete physical and have your genes mapped. Helena was lucky that we stopped you two when we did. You are going to have to be the strong one here, Jeremiah, because for some reason, none of us can resist you when you touch us," Coleen the doctor said. I did not much like it that the women were putting the onus of that on me. That I could be so stoic about it was because I knew the women were as eager as I was for us to be together in that way. Coleen might have been stretching the truth somewhat about them being unable to resist me but I ended up always being the one who had to say stop. The women kept me from becoming completely frazzled. They were ever eager to put little Jeb the Reb at ease every time he sprang to attention, and they had some truly novel ways to keep me from suffering too much. They were totally uninhibited. On the morning after we returned to the cavern near South Pass, the women helped me hitch my team into a twenty mule configuration for the trip back to Cheyenne. We all worked together with practiced ease now, so it was only a matter of twenty minutes before I was ready to roll out. Our plan was for me to take my rig and animals home and return on horseback. Even though I had asked more than once, the women had refused to accompany me home. Instead, they said they would wait for me here. When I suggested that we could find our own way from Cheyenne to California, Sonja answered firmly. "No we can't Jeremiah. We have to leave from here and it has to happen in exactly one hundred and fifty-one hours." By then I was beyond questioning anything the women said. "Then I will be here with bells on," I promised. With empty wagons, good mules and much personal motivation going for me, I made it home in two days. I spent two nights and a day with my family and headed out the fourth morning. I told ma as much of the truth as I thought she would understand. "I took a job from some folks I had met on the road, Ma, and I'll be gone a couple of weeks, maybe longer. The job doesn't involve hauling freight, but I do not believe it is anything dangerous." She replied that she understood and sure hoped that I would outgrow the need to always want to know what was over the next hill. I trotted out of the yard just before sunup, riding one of the horses we had captured from the Indians and leading a second one. By changing horses every couple of hours and only taking a few short breaks, I arrived at South Pass about nine that evening. I swear that no prodigal son ever received as warm a welcome as I did from those amazing women. Within ten minutes of arriving, my saddle sore butt was comfortably perched on a soft cushion and I was nursing a cup of excellent coffee. Coleen and Helena even unsaddled my mounts for me and brought in my gear. I was not taking much with me on the trip, because Sonja asked me to travel light. All I had with me was what I was wearing, plus one clean suit, my pistol, gun belt, shotgun and my fiddle. I was expecting that we would all climb in our bedrolls so we would be fresh to start our trip the next day, but the women had other ideas. As we sat companionably by the fire, Coleen pulled out her little pipe, packed it with that amazing tobacco and handed it to Sonja. Sonja lit the pipe and passed it too me. "Take a few puffs and relax, Jeremiah. We have a story to tell you that might make you change your mind about going home with us," she said. I nodded and absently pulled in a lungful of the sweet smoke, as Sonja squared her shoulders, took a deep breath and started talking. This is what she said... ------- Chapter 13 "I know you think we are very unusual, Jeremiah, and in the context of what you know as normal, you are correct about us. That works both ways, though, because things here are not only strange and different to us, but they are dangerous and frightening as well. If anyone else had found us besides you, I don't think we'd have made it two days here. It was an unbelievable stroke of providence that you came up the road when you did. I cannot believe how naïve we were, thinking that our advanced knowledge and equipment would keep us out of harms way in an environment as hostile as this." I had not thought of things quite that way, but I could see her point immediately. I could see everything being scary to them, given the peaceful portrait she painted of her home. Sonja took the pipe from me and sucked in a big lungful of smoke before passing it to Helena. She held the smoke inside for a long count, then exhaled with a sigh. "So anyway, Jeremiah, it is obvious that we owe our lives to you, but also, we feel more alive because of you. In only a few days, you have stood everything we have ever been taught about men on its ear." The other women nodded their agreement, but I did not say anything. "How we feel about you makes what I have to say next difficult, because it could send you running back home." Sonja sighed, took a deep breath and continued. "Jeremiah, it's not where we are from that makes us unusual, it is when we are from. Oh, we are from California alright, but when we left Paradise Valley, it was the year 2523. Our trip is the end result of almost fifty years of concerted effort by the scientist at Paradise University. Hawkingium is the material that makes the time-travel possible, so this first trip was to recover enough to fuel more important trips planned for the future. The four of us who made the trip were the winners of a lottery among five hundred volunteers. I was appointed the nominal leader of the group." Sonja stopped her narrative and all three women looked at me with bated breath. I sat silently for a few moments, as I tried to grasp what Sonja said. The concept of them being from the distant future actually did not bother me. I prided myself for being a progressive man, even if my choice of professions did not show it. I knew that scientific and inventive men were moving the world forward at an amazing pace. Who knows what wonders they would come up with, given over five hundred years to do it? Besides, it was the most reasonable explanation for all the strangeness associated with Sonja and her party. I made my decision to believe what Sonja was saying. In addition, heading off into the unknown (at least for me) future appealed to my itchy feet. "When do we leave?" I asked. My answer must have been what the women wanted to hear, because all three of them whooped and swarmed on top of me hard enough to tip my camp chair over backwards. I landed flat on my back on the soft sand of the small cavern's floor, as three happy women piled on top of me. I received some seriously applied kisses before they let me up and helped me back into my chair. When we were all seated again, I had a question. "I cannot imagine what sort of problem you could be having that you think a muleskinner could fix, Sonja, so why don't you tell me about it?" Sonja turned serious again and nodded her head. "I need to give you a short history lesson before I tell you that, so you'll understand why we need you. The world has changed drastically between your time and ours, Jeremiah. Yet, we live in my time not that differently than you live here now. That is especially true out in our rural areas. That wasn't true of our ancestors from the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Our historians call that time the "Golden Age". During the time between right now and 2025, most of the science that is in existence in our time was discovered. Transportation reached the point that anywhere on the earth was accessible in a matter of hours, while medical advances cured most of the chronic diseases and mitigated the effects of others. Devices were invented that made Communications instantaneous. In general, most of the people on earth lived in prosperity that is hard to imagine. "Unfortunately, that prosperity required massive amounts of natural resources to maintain, and control over those resources became a contentious issue that led to numerous small wars. At the same time, religious zealots of all sorts were busy turning their followers against anyone not of their religion. While all this was happening, the Earth's climate started to change and geological activity increased to record levels. One natural disaster followed another. Volcanoes erupted and powerful cyclones beyond anything ever witnessed battered coastal areas. Massive earthquakes destroyed major cities and decimated the landscape of rural areas, while gigantic winter storms brought entire continents to a stand still. Droughts that lasted for years struck some regions, while endless rainfall flooded others. "Religious fanatics on every side blamed the natural disasters on each other, while governments did the same. The cycle continued unabated for ten years. By then, every country in the world was at war. In 2152, the end of the Golden Age civilization came when some fanatical religious group exploded a high yield nuclear bomb in Washington, DC." Sonja saw my confused look and explained further. "A nuclear bomb is a weapon of of imaginable power. The one exploded in Washington destroyed the entire city and made an area twenty miles around it uninhabitable. The remnants of the US government retaliated by using nuclear weapons on the three largest cities of the country that was the home of the group claiming responsibility for bombing Washington. Once nuclear weapons were unleashed, every country that possessed the weapon used them on their enemies. Within a week, every major city in the world was destroyed. One of the aftereffects of the Nuclear World War was a twenty-five year mini-ice age that with the continuing natural disasters, eradicated most of the human population that survived the war. By the dawning of the twenty-second Century, the population of the world was about one percent of what it had been at the start of the twenty-first. "The twenty-second and part of the twenty-third centuries were the darkest times imaginable, as the human race barely avoided becoming as extinct as the dinosaur. Pockets of survivors hung on though, and by 2350, civilization started to recover. Human civilization survived, but it was scattered across the earth in isolated pockets, with vast tracts of poisoned and uninhabitable lands between them. Slowly, gradually, the pockets of humanity began to communicate with each other, using cobbled-together equipment salvaged from the golden scientific era. Many of the communities that survived were small college towns away from major population centers. The earth had been stripped of its natural resources, but the ability to do research still existed, and there were literally mountains of machines and equipment that could be salvaged. As a matter of fact, salvage is still the biggest industry of our time. "For the first decade or so, the far flung communities traded survival strategies, and by the year 2360, the population was stable, and for the first time in two centuries actually started to grow. When it appeared that mankind would survive, the philosophical debates began about how to prevent what the earth had barely survived from happening again. It took a much shorter time for our ancestors to determine that the belligerent, malecentric society that had ruled the earth for thousands of years was the root cause of the apocalypse. It took twenty more years to perfect the solution. Around 2380, an altered gene was introduced into the first male. By the turn of the twenty-fifth Century, every male born had the modified gene." Coleen cut into the conversation just then, due to my confused expression, and clarified my unasked question. "Genes are the part of your body's structure that determines physical traits. Your genes are inherited from your parents. For instance, genes are responsible for your hair being the color it is and for the resemblance you have to your mother or father. Genetic research is one area where we have surpassed the science of the Golden Age. Genetic alteration is common place now, as a matter of fact, Helena, Sonja and I are all genetically altered, mostly to make us healthier and stronger, but also to reflect our parents' heritage." I nodded my understanding of the general concept of what she was saying, even though I did not have a clue as to how something like that was possible. Helena saw my look and said, "Don't worry about things you don't understand yet, Jeremiah. A writer named Clarke from the Golden Age once said 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' Once you've spent some time with us, you will see that what appears to be incomprehensible is really just the result of years of hard work." Of all the things the women had told me, that one sentence gave me the most hope as far as understanding anything about their world. I gave her a smile and looked back at Sonja so she could continue my history lesson. Sonja resumed her narrative. "The population of Earth in our time is mostly divided into city-states not unlike Ancient Greece. Natural barriers like mountains and oceans combined with the vast man made dead lands still separate us. There is much interaction between the city-states around the world, but most of it is electronic communications, using machines like the one you saw us using up on the mountain. The open sharing of discoveries, science and ideas has vastly improved the lives of us all. One common goal unites the vast majority of our new civilization, and that is the desire to live in peace and never repeat the mistakes of our ancestors. Unfortunately, there are now groups of humans outside that vast majority. These people live on the fringes of the dead lands and are mostly social outcasts or petty criminals that have been banished from the city of their birth. Those people have banded together in nomadic clans that live off the land. "One of those groups of outcasts lives in the mountains outside Paradise Valley. That group has moved from being a nuisance to actually being a threat to us because of their leader, a woman who has proclaimed herself Queen Elizabeth the Seventh. Her real name is Elizabeth Celt Smith, and she was once a history professor at Paradise University. For some reason, she walked out of the valley one day and started organizing the outcasts. Elizabeth is a brilliant, charismatic, and cruel megalomaniac, whose stated intention is to conquer the world and restore the English Monarchy. Elizabeth says her claim to the throne of Great Brittan was legitimate, because she was a descendent of Queen Elizabeth the Second, and the sole surviving member of the House of Windsor. "Elizabeth has managed to bring together three of the outcast clans. She only has about four thousand followers now, but she gains more converts daily. Her 'nation' is small, but it is made up of ruthless and amoral people who have no compulsion about committing atrocities in the name of their Queen. For the first time in over two hundred years, Paradise Valley has had to organize a defensive force. I think we are in serious trouble, because we do not have the skill or mindset needed to deal with Elizabeth and her rabble. You do, though; watching you deal with those savage Indians proved that." Sonja's story of what happened to the world was so much like my mother's interpretation of the Biblical Book of Revelation, that it shook me to my core. I did not have any doubts about the veracity of Sonja's account. At the same time, the story of how mankind persevered despite everything, made me eager to help them. I was excited as a young boy about the adventure before me. Sleep was hard to come by that night; we were all too excited and keyed up for that. Instead, the women told me more about their lives and their home. I listened avidly, but did not ask too many questions. I was content that in a few hours I would be there anyway to experience everything for myself. The women had one more surprise for me. It came in the form of more discussion about our relationship. This time it did not apply to me and them, but rather them to each other. I sat there in jaw-dropped wonder as they coolly discussed how the sexual relationship with each other would work. I had never thought of that, it was something beyond my experience. I could only nod dumbly when Coleen explained that women with other women was a very commonplace thing in Paradise Valley. "We are limited in how often we can be with a man," she said, "so many women compensate by turning to each other. With you, we can have the best of both worlds." I finally fell asleep sometime in the middle of the night, and inside the dark cavern slept until after nine the next morning. I slept late enough that the women arose before I did. I ducked out of the cavern, greeted them good morning and then walked out of their sight to relieve myself. When I rejoined them, they were sitting around an intensely hot fire burning in a small metal can. A grate of shiny metal was propped over the mostly blue flame and my coffee pot was sitting on the grate. My coffee was ready in a jiffy, so I sat back and had a cup as the women made their final preparation for departing. I sat in the sun, soaking up its warming rays as the women scurried around, making sure they were leaving nothing behind. It was comical watching them as they expended their nervous energy on make-work. I checked my watch when Helena came out of the cave to fetch me. It was ten-ten in the morning on the third of August, 1868. I stood up, stretched and looked out over South Pass. I had to wonder if this would be the last time I saw this ruggedly beautiful land. It struck me as I stood there that returning me to my own time had never been mentioned. I honestly did not know how I felt about that. One thing I did know, I was much less fearful of the unknown than I was excited about it. Inside the cave, the shiny silver trunks were all stacked against the wall opposite the entry. On top of the boxes, the little case with the hinged lid was open and green numbers glowed eerily on the black top section. The numbers were in three pairs separated by colons. The last pair of numbers was decreasing rapidly. Helena gave me an explanation without waiting for me to ask a question. "That is a count down timer. It shows how much time remains before our transfer, fifteen minutes and about twenty seconds." It was the longest fifteen minutes of my life. With one minute remaining, Sonja nudged me closer to the trunks until we were all standing in a tight group. "You might feel disoriented for a few seconds, but it will pass quickly," Coleen said as she squeezed my hand reassuringly. Just as I was about to tell Coleen thank you, the small box chirped and the screen read all zeros. Below the numbers, the words, 'synchronization in progress' appeared briefly then disappeared, and the word 'lock' took their place. Suddenly, the ground beneath my feet seemed to shift, and a wave of dizziness washed over me. I closed my eyes until the dizzy spell ended. When I was steady on my feet again, I opened my eyes and looked around. It took my eyes a few seconds to adjust to the impossibly bright light that lit the room we were now in. I looked at the women first to make sure they were okay, then warily scanned around me. We were in a room about fifteen feet on a side. Two of the room's walls had doors in them, one was bare whitewashed stucco and the fourth was floor to ceiling glass. The ceiling was about eight feet high, white washed like the walls and inset with white tubes that were emitting the bright light. On the other side of the glass wall, a number of men and women in white dusters were gawking at us — or, most probably just me. Finally, one of the men, a high-muck-a-muck, judging from his posture and expression, bent his head and said something into a black tube mounted on a curved stick that came out of the counter in front of him. I saw his lips move, but still jumped when his voice seemed to boom out of the ceiling above my head. "Miss Ferrens, where is Mister Chin and who is this?" the disembodied voice asked. I was glad that the man had spoken such a short sentence, because his manner of speech was so fast and clipped that I could barely follow what he said. I turned from examining the room and looked at Sonja. She turned towards the wall of glass and calmly replied, "I'll explain as soon as we decontaminate and you can gather the Pleiad, Doctor Mendez." The room was sparsely furnished with a couple of fancy barber's chairs and some sliver metal boxes on wheels. Before I could examine the room any further, Sonja and Helena grabbed my hands and started dragging me toward one of the doors where Coleen was standing. "Come on, Jeremiah, I've been waiting a week for this," Sonja said impatiently. My heartbeat sped up when she said that, as I thought she was dragging me towards a bed. As usual, what I was thinking and actual reality were trains on different tracks. The room she led me toward turned out to be an eight by eight box with a couple of nicely crafted wooden Deacon's benches along one wall but nary a bed in sight. In between the benches was a canvass bag set inside a frame on wheels. The wall opposite the door had pipes coming out of the shiny slick wall about seven feet above the floor and a grate was set in the center of the floor. The women started shedding their clothes as soon as the door closed, but this time they did not stop at their underwear. I stood there rooted to the spot as they shucked down. Even though each of them had been naked with me at one time or another, this was the first time in enough light for me to see anything in detail. They were even more beautiful in the light, if that were possible. As I stood rooted to the spot drinking in their beauty, I could not help notice that they were completely without body hair. Instead, their skin was smooth and flawless. Helena was olive complexioned, Sonja pale and creamy skinned, while Coleen was alabaster with a dusting of freckles. A smiling Coleen broke me out of my dazed admiration of their beauty. "Are you going to stand there and gawk all day, or would you like to join us?" she asked. I blushed at being caught staring and sat down on one of the benches to remove my boots. Coleen and Helena lifted the lid of the other bench and took out a blue bottle and a couple of bars of what appeared to be some of that fancy French milled soap. Then they walked over to the other side of the room and started twisting knobs sticking out of the walls until water sprayed out, rain-like, from the pipes set above their heads. Sonja stayed next to me as I squirmed out of my clothes. Sonja threw my clothes in the canvas bag on the wheeled cart. "Your clothes need to be irradiated and laundered before you can wear them again," she said in the way of explanation. I was slightly embarrassed at my tumescence as Sonja took my hand and led me to the pulsating water. Soon, all three women were making happy noises as the water pelted down on them. "I never thought a shower could feel this good. For a while there I thought I'd never be clean again," Helena moaned. "Amen," chorused the other women. The 'shower' as they called it was very nice; I was surprised with how warm the water was. Showering suddenly became one of my favorite activities when Sonja handed me the perfumed soap and asked me to wash her back. The next fifteen minutes were filled with soapy fun as I washed and shampooed each of my lovelies and they teamed up to wash me squeaky clean. We dried off with thick Turkish towels that were inside of one of the benches. The women donned baggy green pants and shirts that were also inside the benches, but they handed me this flimsy cotton night shirt that wrapped around me and tied in the back. I protested that I could feel cold air on my butt, so I knew the shirt gaped open in the back. Coleen reached behind me and gave my cheek a pinch as the other women giggled. "Yep," she said with a grin, "too bad we don't have anything large enough to fit someone as big as you." Then she turned serious as she said, "You'll only be in it a short while, Jeremiah, as soon as your physical exam and lab work are done, we'll have something more appropriate for you to wear." I had my doubts, but I grumbled my acquiescence as we walked out of the shower room. I met my first other people from the future when we walked back into the room with the glass wall. They were a man and woman wearing the same green suits as the women with me but with square white masks over their mouth and nose. Coleen introduced them as her colleagues, Doctors Pierce and Hunnicut. Helena and Sonja left us then to go meet with the Pleiad. The Pleiad, I later learned, was the seven member council that governed Paradise Valley. Sonja and Helena both gave me a kiss before they left, which seemed to shock the tarnation out of the masked doctors. Coleen and the other two doctors put me through a lengthy process that included them bleeding me of numerous glass vials of my life's blood. Then they poked, prodded and hit me with a funny shaped hammer before attaching me to some weirdly beeping machine. They even made me provide a sample of my urine, an exercise that was my introduction to the future's answer to the outhouse. Pierce, the male doctor, showed me how everything worked. Of all I had seen of the future so far, the bathroom impressed me the most. Doctor Pierce departed with the blood and urine samples, while Coleen and Doctor Hunnicut continued my exam. It was just as well that Pierce left, because I would have never allowed a man to do some of what the exam required. It was embarrassing enough to have a woman I did not know participate in it. It seemed to me that Coleen took great pleasure in showing my genitals to Doctor Hunnicut. "Look at this, Sarah," Coleen said as she grabbed me by my manhood. "I'll bet you've never seen one like this. Go ahead and touch it." Then as natural as you please, she turned to me and continued talking, "By the way, Jeremiah, this is my friend Sarah, we went to medical school together. Sarah, take that silly mask off and let Jeremiah see how pretty you are." Coleen replaced her hand with Sarah's on the little Reb, then reached around Sarah's head and untied her mask. I was looking into Sarah's big brown eyes as the mask came off. As soon as she took a breath, her nostrils flared and her eyelids fluttered as she gently held my maleness in her hand. "He smells good," Sarah squeaked. Coleen's eyebrows knitted together at that remark. "I thought the same thing the first time I met him," She said, frowning in thought. Sarah was a very pretty woman; she was not quite as tall as Coleen and a tad more voluptuous, if her face was any indication of what lay under the shapeless clothing she wore. She was also much shier than Coleen as she blushed rosily at Coleen's comment about being pretty. I felt my member firming up as she gently examined it and worked back my foreskin. I tried my best to stop it, but the little devil had a mind of his own. The harder I became, the bigger grew Sarah's eyes. When I was nearly totally erect, she snatched her hand away with a breathy, "Oh my!" Coleen laughed at Sarah's reaction and put her friends hand back on me. "He does that spontaneously all the time. Having it happen now is perfect, as we can collect a sample and test his sperm's virility and motility," Coleen said. Between the two of them, they managed to extract the sample they wanted in no time flat. The rest of me was as relaxed and limp as my member by the time they extracted what they needed. Thankfully, I had returned to normal when Pierce returned after about fifteen minutes. This time he had Doctor Mendez, the obvious head honcho of this outfit with him. Mendez had a sheaf of papers in his hand and two women armed with stunners stood at his side. Even with one of those masks on his face, his scowl was evident. He gestured for Coleen to join him near the door and the two of them held an animated conference out of my hearing. Coleen was frowning and emphatically shaking her head. I had a feeling that whatever Mendez had found did not bode well for me. My instincts were on full alert when Mendez motioned the two armed women toward me, then followed them over to where I was standing. "You need to come with us," Mendez said, his voice dripping with disdain. ------- Chapter 14 Before I could reply, Coleen squeezed herself between the guards and stood in front of me. "No he doesn't," she said angrily. "He needs to stay right here until Sonja returns from meeting with the Pleiad." "We won't harm your savage, Doctor O'Neil, but he is too dangerous to be allowed to roam loose. This project is my responsibility, and I'll not have it jeopardized because you three decided to pick up a pet along the way," Mendez said. Old Doctor Mendez was wearing on my nerves about then, as I did not especially appreciate being called all those names. I had met many officers like Mendez during the war. They were men full of themselves and the authority they had been given. They were small minded men who rigidly followed the rules, even when it led them to defeat. The two guards Mendez had with him had moved up close to my sides as Mendez was speaking. The women were even taller than Sonja and quite a bit stouter. They were dressed in black trousers and black knitted shirts with a folded over high neck. I stood still and kept my expression open and non-threatening while I attempted to reason with Mendez. "That is not a very neighborly way to treat a guest, Doc. Especially one who means you no harm," I said calmly. Mendez snorted and replied, "I seriously doubt a Neanderthal like you knows enough about civilized conduct to correct me, Brock. When I report to the Pleiad what we found sequencing your DNA, you'll be out in the dead lands with the modern version of your ilk before the sun sets." I surreptitiously checked the guards on either side of me as Mendez spoke, as I figured their attention was on him and not me. In a move I had perfected disarming dozens of drunken cowboys, miners and railroad men, my hands shot out from my sides and grabbed both of their stunners. I pivoted on the balls of my feet and snatched the small weapons out of their grasp. Before the stunned doctors or guards could react, I reversed my grip on the surprisingly light-weight weapons and pointed them both at Mendez. All of that was well and good, but as I stood there, I realized I was still just as trapped as I had been only a minute before. I mean I was in a strange place hundreds of years in the future; where could I go? I took both weapons into one hand and grip first, handed them to a wide-eyed Coleen. She took the stunners and I turned to Mendez. "Find me some clothes and lead on, Doctor Mendez. I will wait to see what your council says, as long as you understand that I am your guest and not your prisoner," I said with as much braggadocio as I could muster. Mendez gave me a fearful, angry look, but nodded his head curtly. "Lawson, see to some clothing for Mister Brock," he ordered one of the guards. Lawson nodded her head, walked to the door, fiddled with something beside it at about chest level, pushed the door open and slipped out of it. We all stood there in an uncomfortable tableau until Lawson bustled back in with an outfit for me just like the one she and her partner wore. I dressed with as much dignity as I could muster, slipping the trousers on before tossing off the ill-conceived nightshirt. The clothes were of a texture and weave that was beyond anything I had ever owned. The clothes were clearly utilitarian, but very high quality. The trousers were slightly too short, but the waist stretched accommodatingly. The shirt fit as if it was a second skin, but it was not uncomfortably tight. Lawson handed me a pair of cloth slippers, but even though they stretched, they were not even close to fitting on my big clod-hoppers. Lawson giggled at my vain attempts to stretch the slippers over my feet, but stifled it when Mendez shot her a disapproving, school marmish frown. I gave up on the slippers, told Mendez to lead the way, and we filed out of the room. As we walked down a long corridor, I could not help but notice that all four women were walking close to me, while the two men acted as if I did not exist. We had only walked about forty feet when Mendez stopped at a door that had the words 'MEDICAL QUARANTINE SUITE ONE' painted on it. Mendez took what looked like a playing card from his shirt pocket and stuck it in a slot by the door. As soon as he did that, the latch made an audible click and he pushed the door open. Mendez stepped aside and gestured me through the door, I walked in with Coleen close on my heels. Coleen still had one of the stunners in her hand and the other one tucked in the waist band of her loose trousers. Mendez did not like the idea of Coleen joining me in the room. "You are jeopardizing your career with your actions, Doctor O'Neil," he said warningly. Coleen shrugged, handed him the stunners and said, "Someone has to show him how things work and keep him company until Sonja returns. I am partly responsible for him being here, so it is my duty to make sure he is treated properly. You don't seem to realize that if it weren't for Jeremiah, neither we nor the Hawkingium would have made it back. He deserves much better treatment than he has received so far." Mendez snorted derisively. "He might have helped, but I doubt if it was for any reason other than his own gain. Think about it, doctor, he embodies everything we are struggling to overcome. His kind are what almost destroyed the human race." Before Coleen could respond, Mendez stalked out of the room, slamming the door emphatically as he departed. Coleen started apologizing for Mendez's conduct as soon as he was out the door. I shushed her and told her I had seen plenty of his type when I was in the glorious Army of Northern Virginia, and that I took no offense to it. Coleen seemed much relieved by what I said. She gave me a big hug, then led me by the hand through my new digs. I was much impressed with the indoor plumbing and the flameless cooking stove. Coleen tried to explain to me about something she called electricity that made the stove and bright lights work. Except for the fact that electricity somehow came from windmills and the sun, her explanation went in one ear and out the other with nary a stop in betwixt. I had much less trouble grasping how to make the simple controls work. Turn a knob one way and a burner turned red hot, turn it the other and it was off again. Same with the handles for water, except one handle was for hot and another was for cold. I was also impressed with the thick mattress on the large bed in the bedroom. I do not know what it was ticked with, but it was the most comfortable I had ever felt. It felt as if it would be too soft when I first laid on it, but after my body sank into it, it firmed up just right. Coleen was smiling as I luxuriated on the fine mattress, until I grabbed her hand and pulled her down on top of me. She squirmed in my arms as I kissed her, and freed herself enough to move her lips near my ear. "Someone is watching and recording everything that happens in here, so behave yourself," she whispered sternly. I did not like the idea of being spied on one little bit, but I nodded and let her up. We adjourned to the sitting room and took seats on the couch, while Coleen told me more about every day life in the future. Helena had been correct when she said that I would see enough similarities with what was common place in my time, to be able to function in theirs. We had been chatting for an hour or so, when the door swung open and Sonja and Helena swept into the room and made a bee-line to me. Both women had changed clothes somewhere along the line and were now wearing the same black trousers as I. Instead of a black shirt, however, Sonja wore a blue one and Helena's was yellow. When they stopped in front of me, I could plainly see the concern and touch of anger in Sonja's eyes. "Are you okay, Jeremiah? Someone called me and told me that idiot Mendez had you locked up," she said. I tried to downplay what had happened, but Coleen kept butting in with details I had glossed over. Sonja's expression steadily became stormier, until Coleen came to the part of the story where I disarmed the two guards. When Coleen relayed that tidbit, Sonja's eyebrows tried to climb onto the top of her head. "He disarmed Lawson and Habib? I'd have paid to see that, I've seen them both best three opponents at one time in the gym." I did not know where this Jim's place was, but it dang sure did not cater to cowboys, miners or railroad men, if those two could whomp three of the customers. Before I could say anything about that, Coleen butted in yet again. "I think that they were distracted, being in Jeremiah's presence for the first time. I need to run a few tests to confirm my suspicions, but I am beginning to have an inkling of why that might be," Coleen said. Before anyone else went off on another tangent, I asked the question that was foremost in my mind, "So anyway, what did the council decide, Sonja?" Sonja smiled for the first time since she arrived. "Oh, them. They were ecstatic about the 15 kilos of Hawkingium we brought back, and they are most appreciative of your efforts on our behalf. The other idea is going to take some debate as to how we might best utilize your talents." Sonja stopped talking for a few seconds and frowned before she continued. "Our big problem is the quarantine order Mendez has you under. He told the Pleiad that he had good reason for it, and asked to see them privately later this afternoon. Of course the council is not going to overrule the Chief Medical Officer until they hear his story. What caused him to do that anyway, Coleen?" Coleen had a ready explanation. "When Doctor Pierce ran Jeremiah's DNA, he found the gene that modern men are missing which prevents the formation of the protein molecule for sexo-social aggressiveness. That was probably enough for Mendez's action, but then Pierce discovered that Jeremiah's DNA had one of the other two genes in that codon out of sequence, and Mendez felt justified in taking extreme action. I think that the out of sequence gene is the reason women of our time seem drawn to Jeremiah. My theory is that Jeremiah's aggressiveness gene has mutated in a way that expresses itself as a pheromone that attracts women." I could not follow most of what Coleen said, but I understood that it had something to do with how I smelled. I know it was a simpletons action, but I could not help raising my arm and taking a cautious whiff. After Coleen said her piece, Sonja asked her a few questions about whether anything about whatever I had different about me would be a danger to the community. When Coleen assured her absolutely not, Sonja walked across the room and opened a small cubbyhole door I had completely missed. The open door revealed a device that resembled the machine that counted down our time until departure back in the cave. Sonja tapped a sequence of the buttons with letters on them and a few seconds later, the face of a handsome older man appeared on the black slate-like portion of the machine. My curiosity got the better of me, so I asked Coleen who was the man in the picture. "That's the chairman of the council. Sonja is the council's lead troubleshooter, so she has great credibility with them." Sonja finished off her conversation with the council chairman and dragged Coleen off with her, so Coleen could brief the headman in person before the council met with Doctor Mendez. Helena stayed with me to keep me company and probably to keep me out of mischief. Helena took Coleen's seat beside me on the divan. I figured since she took Coleen's seat, she could answer my questions too. The first question I asked was about how the government worked here in good old Paradise Valley. Helena was happy to fill me in. "We live in a participatory democracy, Jeremiah, where every person eighteen and older who has completed our mandated civics class has a vote. The Council of Citizens is the head of the government. Members of the council are chosen at random from among eligible voters for a four year mandatory term. There are ten council members at all times. All ten councilors participate in council business, but only seven, the Pleiad, have a vote. Every year, one or two of the councilors' terms expire and one or two new ones are appointed. The councilors who served for the previous year without a vote move up to the Pleiad. Members of the Pleiad can be removed from office if two thirds of the citizens vote for it. "Every major decision of the council is voted on by the citizenry. Votes are cast via computer and the voting window is forty-eight hours. All council meetings are open to the public and available on video, so citizens can watch matters debated at their leisure. In our constitution, it is every citizen's sacred duty to participate in our democracy. In the one hundred and ten years our constitution has been in effect, there has never been a vote in which fewer than ninety percent of those eligible voted. "We have a small civil service that administers the government. Members of the civil service are held to the highest standards of conduct, and their salary and advancement are based strictly on merit. We have a small judiciary system that is constitutionally limited to one lawyer per thousand citizens. All lawyers are part of the civil service, and their services are free to anyone. Most legal matters are handled by a panel of five lawyers appointed by the council, but on the rare occasion a trial is necessary, both the defense and prosecuting attorney are chosen at random. A member of the civil service convicted of violating the publics' trust is automatically banished from the valley." What Helena told me about their government was very interesting to me, and I could not find many faults with a system where the people actually participated in their governing on the scale the future men did. After the civics lesson, Helena crawled up into my lap and kissed me passionately. "Enough talk, Jeremiah, you have a clean bill of health, I'm protected now, and we have some unfinished business," she said sultrily. I told her what Coleen said about being watched. Helena frowned then stood up and went to the same place from which Sonja called the councilman. Her fingers were a blur on the small buttons with letters on them as she mumbled to herself. " ... this really is an old system ... they probably had something better than this in your time, Jeremiah..." she muttered under her breath. Helena stopped talking and the buttons stopped clicking at the same time. "That takes care of that," she said with a smirk. Her smirk turned to a squeal when I growled, swept her up in my arms and stomped toward the bedroom. After she squealed in surprise, she moaned, and pressed her face into the crook between my neck and shoulder as I walked into the bedroom. Helena had barely stopped bouncing from where I tossed her onto that fine mattress, before I was out of my shirt and working on my trousers. Helena was in as big a hurry as I was, so clothes were flying everywhere. In fewer than thirty seconds, we were both naked and I was swan diving onto the bed. I immediately started doing those things that I knew made lovemaking better for a woman. I wanted our first time to be special for Helena. When I started heading south with my kisses, she wrapped those long lithesome legs around my waist and stopped me. "Save that for later Honey," she sighed. "I think if I have to wait another second for you to be in me, I'll start screaming." Before I could reply, she grasped my member and positioned it against her womanhood. I could feel how ready she was by her slick wetness. She seated me at the portals of heaven and groaned when I pushed firmly forward. Even with her being as wet as she was, gaining purchase within her tightly clasping channel was slow going. Every time I pushed, she let out a little whimper and her tunnel would ripple around my invading staff. I tried to stop and give her time to accustom herself to me, but when I did, she pulled me towards her again with the powerful muscles in her legs. Making love to Helena was right up there among the best things that had ever happened to me. I believed her when she said she felt likewise. Our first time, once I finally managed to get us joined, was fast and furious, but very mutually satisfying. Once the edge was off both our ardor, our second was not near as frantic. We made slow languid love with much kissing and whispered terms of endearment. All three of the women from the future loved being close to me and they loved to cuddle. I think part of my attraction for all three of the women was that I was a hopeless romantic at heart, so cuddling with them was not an imposition in the least. We were lying on the bed, relaxing and catching our breath, when something started chiming in the pile of clothes that Helena and I haphazardly flung on the floor. Helena squirmed around until she could hang over the end of the bed, and retrieve a small black object from the pile. I was not a bit surprised when she held the object in front of her face and talked into it. "This is Helena," is what she said. Sonja's voice instantly answered her, "Your vid is off Helena. Does that mean what I think?" Helena looked at me and her cheeks turned pink. "I'll tell you later. I hope that's not why you called." Sonja's laughter tinkled out of the device. "No, I called to let you know Lawson is headed your way with Jeremiah's clothes and boots. When Jeremiah is ready, Lawson will take you two over to one of the dorm's poly-suites. The Pleiad voted to release him to us. They want to meet Jeremiah tomorrow and talk to him about how he might help. To appease Mendez, Chairman Griggs assigned Lawson to accompany Jeremiah anytime he is out of the suite. Tell Jeremiah he needs to be on his best behavior, because they issued Lawson a new type of stunner." The conversation with Sonja energized Helena. She leapt out of bed and ran toward the bathroom. "We stink, get out of that bed and into the shower!" she yipped. Helena and I were sitting chastely on the couch when Lawson rapped her knuckles on the door of the room ten minutes later. Helena opened the door and Lawson stalked in. She dropped my clothes and boots on the table. Lawson was looking at me none too friendly, so I immediately apologized for disarming her earlier. I was sincere when I told her how sorry I felt for overreacting. When I finished apologizing, I held out my hand to her so we could shake and start over. When she clasped my hand in hers, her eyes blinked a few times, then she licked her lips and smiled. "Bygones, Mister Brock, and please call me Tonya." Tonya and Helena decided I would draw less attention in the black outfit, so I slipped on my boots, made a bundle of my other clothes and followed Tonya out the door. As Tonya led the way, I realized that she was even bigger than I had first thought. If she was not six foot two and at least a hundred and seventy pounds, I would eat my hat. For a big person, she carried her size with a surprising cat-like grace. The more I saw of her, the more I decided that it had to have been mostly luck that allowed me to disarm her. We walked for quite a ways before we exited the building. I was completely disoriented by all the turns we made as we marched down seemingly endless deserted corridors. I was much relieved when we finally climbed three sets of stairs and passed through a door out into the late afternoon sunlight. I took a long look around after my eyes adjusted to the bright sun. For the first time since my arrival, I was awed by what I saw. The building we walked out of was two stories tall and built much like the government buildings I remembered from Richmond. We had come out of the two story square building onto a pathway made of a smooth hard material. The pathway meandered through a small grassy glade with some large oaks shading it. Around the other three sides of the glade, rose magnificent buildings at least one hundred feet tall and sporting acres of glass windows. Helena and Tonya smiled indulgently at me as I stood with my head tilted back as if I were a goose trying to drown myself. "This is the science quad, Jeremiah. The building we were in houses classrooms, laboratories, an auditorium and the time portal. The other buildings around the quad are all residences for science students," Helena said, then she turned to Tonya and asked, "Which hall are we in?" Tonya pointed to the building straight ahead and replied, "Asimov Hall, apartment 2E." I kept up with the women as they briskly walked towards the building, but it was an effort, because one new sight after another caught my attention. I think next to the buildings, the most amazing thing I saw on our little jaunt was the young people casually lounging around in the grass. Some were laying on blankets practically naked and seemingly asleep, while others sat in small groups talking animatedly. Amazing to me was the fact that there were at least as many women here as there were men. I had never heard of a university in which men and women attended together. We, on the other hand, drew very little attention as we walked purposely toward our lodging. Our apartment was a corner unit facing away from the little glade that Helena called the 'quad'. The apartment had a nice parlor, a dining room with a table and six chairs, a kitchen full of equipment I could not identify, and an indoor privy. It also had an absolutely amazing bedroom with its own indoor bathroom and privy. The bedroom was probably sixteen feet on a side and was dominated by a huge four poster bed sitting squarely in the middle of the floor. I asked Helena the obvious question, "What is the purpose of having such a large bed?" "This is a 'poly room' Jeremiah. There are a number of them in each resident hall. The rooms are for those students who have formed or want to form a poly. Poly is the word we use to describe a relationship between three or more people. The support and companionship the members of the poly provide each other is probably much more important than the sex. The unwritten rule is that every member of the poly participates fully in all of its activities, that is why there is only one bedroom and one large bed," Helena replied. For once, I understood exactly what she was saying. I understood it because this thing they called a 'poly' matched closely my idea of the family I wanted for myself. My next dose of future wonderment came when Tonya pushed a tall all-glass door to the side, and led me out onto a small balcony off the parlor. About fifty feet in front of the balcony, a wide black street ran left to right. On the street, these forevermore strange carriages and coaches whizzed along quiet as a gentle breeze. Most of the contraptions were large coaches that resembled railroad passenger cars, but there were a few smaller, brightly colored machines as well. I could see folks riding in the things, but what I did not see was any hint of what propelled them, no locomotives, no draft animals and no one pushing or pulling. On the edges of the road, other people were clipping along on two-wheeled conveyances that appeared to be powered by the pumping of the person's legs. Tonya was very patient with me as she explained what I was seeing, and answered my inane questions. It was four in the afternoon when I came back inside the apartment from the balcony. I didn't need to look at the clock on the kitchen wall to know it was nearing suppertime, because my stomach was reminding me and complaining about missing lunch. Helena heard my stomach growl embarrassingly loud, and plucked her little talking device off her belt. After a brief conversation of which I only heard one side, she put the device away and gave me news I wanted to hear. "Sonja and Connie will be here in half an hour and they are bringing food with them." Sonja and Coleen arrived right on time and to my great pleasure, they brought food that was already cooked. The meal was a couple of large round flat breads covered in tomato sauce and topped with some sort of sliced meat and stringy cheese. Sonja called the thing a 'pizza'. Even had I not been famished, I would have stuffed myself; it was one of the best tasting things I have ever thrown down my throat. After our meal, Sonja and Coleen dragged me down stairs to help them move some of their belongings up to our new digs, while Helena and Tonya took off to bring back their stuff. I was loaded down like a pack mule when we walked back into the building. The thought of climbing the stair carrying three big valises made me glad we were only on the second floor. Turns out, there was another way up though, because Sonja detoured me to a set of metal doors. She pushed a button on the wall and a few seconds later, the doors slid open to reveal an empty room the size of a large closet. I followed the women into the room, Sonja pushed another button on the wall and the doors closed with a hiss. As soon as the doors closed, the floor seemed to move, and I had that same sense of unbalance I felt when we traveled in time. Sonja saw me jerk my head around and laid her hand on my arm reassuringly. "This is an elevator," she said. Then she explained how it worked. Tonya and Helena returned an hour later and I repeated my duties as their beast of burden. It was near seven in the evening by then, and the sky was rapidly giving up the colors of the day. I was all set for a quiet evening, and excited about what the night would bring, when Sonja plopped down on the couch next to me. "Your clothes are laid out on the bed. Go change, because we are going out tonight to celebrate our safe return." When I nodded my understanding, Sonja kissed me on the lips and purred in my ear, "Don't worry cowboy, we won't stay out long. We have too much unfinished business to take care of." I did not really feel like going out in public yet, because I knew so little about how I should comport myself around these future people. However, my women wanted to go and I wanted them to be happy, so I jumped up and did Sonja's bidding. Later on, I sure was glad I didn't raise any objections, because it turned out to be the best night of my life. ------- Chapter 15 The clothes laid out for me on the bed were a strange combination of well-worn work pants and about the fanciest shirt I had ever seen. The shirt was made of black silk with three blood red roses sewn on to the front over the heart. In addition, the shirt had spurs, horseshoes and wagon wheels stitched all over it in shiny silver thread. Used or not, it was beyond a doubt the finest shirt I'd ever seen, let alone owned. To go with the shirt were a faded pair of half overalls made by Levi Strauss that Sonja insisted on me calling 'blue jeans', 'jeans' or 'Levis'. The trousers were a bit snug in the seat and legs for my comfort, but the women said they were perfect. I slipped on my boots and grabbed my hat, ready for whatever the women had in mind. They had in mind me waiting an hour and a half while they bathed and dressed. At least I had a book to read while I waited, because Sonja had thoughtfully brought me a tome titled, "Illustrated History of the United States, Volume Three: 1850 — 1950." I was up to the year 1862, when one of the women trumpeted their arrival with a loud "TA DA!" I immediately forgot the book in my hand as my eyes bulged out of my head. The way the four women looked made it so I did not know where to point my peepers first. Sonja and Coleen were also wearing denim work britches that were worn and faded. Now I've seen more than one woman working a job that required wearing trousers, but those women had worn pants that had been baggy and ill fitting. That was definitely not the case with the britches Coleen and Sonja wore. Their jeans sure looked good stretched across their round little bottoms. With the denims, they wore checkered shirts, boots with tall heels and fringed vests. Helena and Tonya were wearing skirts made of denim. Skirts that were scandalously short, baring their legs up to their knees. Helena wore the same sort of tall heeled boots that Sonja and Coleen sported, but her top was a solid red silky scooped neck affair that almost made me drool. Tonya wore a much more modest white shirt with a high neck and long sleeves. Still, her bountiful bosom strained against the fabric most alluringly. Even though her boots had lower heels, Tonya still towered over everyone except me. They were all smiles as I stood there incredulously. "My goodness, you are all a vision!" I finally managed to exclaim. I guess that my enthusiasm made up for my lack of eloquence, because even Tonya had a smile for their muleskinner. We traipsed out of the apartment and ended up out on the street where I saw the strange coaches earlier. While we were waiting beside the road, I had my first look at the handbags the women carried. Everyone except Tonya had a small leather bag on a strap slung casually over their shoulder. When I noticed that, I commented on it. "Tonya, do we need to go back for your purse?" I asked. Tonya gave me a sly grin, rucked up her skirt just enough that I could see she had a larger model stunner in a holster strapped high up on her long shapely thigh and said, "Nope, I need both hands free in case you try anything crazy, so Helena has my Omni-card and money." I gave her a grin in return and teased her right back. "Judging from where you hid your shooting-iron, you already know the crazy thing I am thinking of trying." We waited for about fifteen minutes before one of the very same locomotiveless railroad coaches glided to a whisper-quiet halt right in front of us. I had my reservations about boarding the strange conveyance, but I was not about to act fearful in front of my women. So I hauled my muley butt aboard. It did not help settle my mind when I noticed that there was no one operating the machine. Sonja slipped onto a padded bench and patted the seat next to her. I sat down where she indicated and Coleen plopped herself down in my lap. Helena and Tonya sat on an identical bench facing us and away we went. As we traveled, Sonja continued introducing me to this time. "Jeremiah, do you recall that we have mentioned that the latter part of the Twentieth Century was the Golden Era of scientific discovery?" she asked. When I nodded affirmatively, she continued. "Much of our science in this era is recovering what our ancestors discovered. Luckily, there are thousands of hours of audio and video from those times to help us in our scientific inquiries. There are also many thousands of hours of video recordings of the culture from that time, and not surprisingly, much of our culture is our re-creation of what we feel was the best of theirs. The music and entertainment from that era are amazing in their richness and diversity. Tonight we are taking you to one of our favorite clubs, one that features a style of music called country and western. We thought you might enjoy it because it celebrates the cowboy of the old west. That's why we are dressed like this. As a matter of fact, we bought the shirt you are wearing at the Recycled Cowboy Boutique. It supposedly belonged to a twentieth century country-western musician named Hank Williams." Sonja and the women then tried to describe to me other music and forms of entertainment, but most of what they described, I could not even imagine. They laughed at my confusion and told me that I'd have to see rock and roll or disco for myself, because they both defied description. The idea that anyone would want to celebrate the hard, dirty and dangerous lifestyle of cowboys was beyond me. Of course, much of how these future men and women acted was in that category too, so I shrugged and silently vowed to keep my mind open and my opinions to myself. That was my mindset when the trolley, as Helena called it, slid to a stop in front of a large, double story, windowless building. Over a series of doors set in the front wall, a figure of a cowboy, drawn in a garish line of red light, twirled a lasso while his horse reared on its hind legs. Inside the lasso, a blinking blue light proclaimed that this was Pecos Pete's Saloon, Grill and Dancehall. We exited the coach and walked in a gaggle to the door. The way the women were excitedly giggling, you would think it was their first visit instead of mine. I opened the door for the ladies, doffed my hat and followed them into the building. We stopped just inside the door so the women could pay a fee for us to enter. Two women about the same size as Tanya collected one of those stiff playing card things from Sonja, stuck it into a slot on some sort of machine and then handed it back. The other woman dabbed a stamp into some Indian ink and stamped the backs of our hands. The woman doing the stamping looked at me oddly and kept holding my hand after it was stamped. I stood there politely until Coleen cleared her throat and said we need to go find a table. The woman at the table reluctantly released my hand and gave me a smile. "See you around, Cowboy," she purred. Once past the ticket takers, I had my first good look at the interior of the Pecos Pete's. There was a lot to see, as the building appeared even bigger on the inside than I had imagined from looking at the exterior. The left side of the large open space was the dance hall side. It had a big wooden dance floor and a raised band stand. The right side consisted of at least a hundred drink tables with chairs, and a bar that had to be fifty feet long. The place was also fairly crowded, and surprisingly, I saw more women than men. The women were all attractive and wore very revealing clothing. If this joint served a decent shot of Tequila, this had to be the place that good cowboys went after their last round-up. Music was playing, although the stage was empty except for some instruments resting on stands. The music seemed to be coming from every direction, but was not loud enough to preclude conversation. A few brave couples were on the dance floor, performing some intricate looking reel, but most folks were sitting at the tables, drinking colorful frothy drinks and talking a mile a minute. I was still trying to identify the source of the music as the women led the way to an empty table not far from the stage and off to the side of the dance floor. I was fascinated that so many women were there and that they were patrons instead of workers. I did not judge the women negatively because they were in a saloon. As I thought about it, I realized that the situation made perfect sense in a time when women had the same rights as men. Before I could ask Sonja about it, the band appeared and started playing. The women jumped to their feet with a whoop. There was a veritable stampede of women dashing out onto the dance floor, mine smack in the middle of them. Once the women were on the dance floor, they formed up in ranks straight enough to make old General Lee himself proud. When all the women were in line, they clapped their hands once, and commenced to move in unison, first one way then the other. It took me a minute to catch the rhythm of how they were moving, but I soon figured out that they were only doing about half a dozen steps before making a quarter turn and repeating the steps, facing in a different direction. It looked like fun, so I jumped my big old muley butt up, squeezed in between Helena and Tanya, and proceeded to cut a rug. When I joined the women dancing, a hush fell over the floor and a few of the other women actually stopped moving and stood gawking at me. When I looked at Sonja questioningly, she gave me a big grin and said, "We aren't used to men joining us, Jeremiah. In fact, you are the first man I've ever seen line dancing in the four years I've been coming here." Not wanting to offend anyone, I stopped dancing, apologized and started to walk back to the table. Before I could take a second step, Tonya and a woman I did not even know grabbed my arms. "Don't go Jeb. We were surprised, not insulted. Stay out and dance with us," Tonya pleaded. I looked at the other women and they all nodded enthusiastically, so I jumped back in line and picked up the step. I do not mind telling you that I am considered in some parts to be a right fine dancer. Dancing was a skill I picked up whilst I was serving in the Glorious Army of Northern Virginia. When I took up playing the fiddle and became proficient enough to sit in with the camp musicians, we always drew a crowd. Some of the spectators were some Scotsmen from North Carolina who showed us flatlanders what clogging was all about. At the same time, Lenora Quigley took it upon herself to teach me the art of dancing the Quadrille. Camille Devereaux and Collette continued my education in dancing during my stay in Boulder. I am proud to say that many a fallen angel in dancehalls across the eastern face of the Rockies felt well disposed towards me, just based on my dancing skill. However, none of those dancehall floozies from my time came close to appreciating my skill like those women from the future. The women who were with me were all smiles as we walked back to the table after that dance. The women protested, but I sat out the next line dance so I could study the musicians playing up on the stage. One thing about the men of the future that really stuck out was how dour they all appeared to be. Granted, I had only met a few of them, but I could not remember a single one of the modern men smiling. As I looked around the saloon, the pattern held true, as all I saw were sour-faced men who appeared not to be having any fun in the least. Even the musicians were somber, even though they played beautifully. The next song was a fast waltz type number and Sonja pulled me to my feet. "Dance with me, Jeremiah, I love the Texas Two Step," she said. Well her Texas Two Step was nothing more than a counter-clockwise Scottish Reel, not much different than Lenora Quigley taught me during the war. When I became proficient enough with my violin, Lenora would invite me to sit in with some other musicians who performed during the bi-weekly socials she threw for senior officers and society matrons. In between dancing with the colonels and generals, Lenora would take a few turns around the room with that dashing young lieutenant, Jeremiah Brock. It took me all of fifteen seconds with Sonja to determine that the Texas Two Step was almost identical to what Lenora called the Military Two Step Reel. Once I deduced that, I led Sonja around the floor with such élan, everyone hooted and hollered at us when we walked back to our table. I reckon my display of fancy footwork with Sonja resulted in me becoming the future's version of a dancehall floozy, because for the next half hour, my women and Tonya kept me out on the floor for every song. Heck, I even had to turn down a couple of women I had never met. I was as popular as Miss Corrina back in Cheyenne. Corrina was a big old gal who worked down at the Broken Spoke Saloon. She was no raving beauty, but men flocked around her as if she were Jenny Lind. They were drawn to her because she had a way of making every man who danced with her think they were the most important person who ever lived. I tried the same technique on my women and they acted tickled to death about it. Yes, the dancing was fun; at least it was up until I danced a slow waltz with Tonya Lawson. I love the feel of a woman in my arms at any time, and dancing gave me plenty of opportunity to do that. I just was not used to having that much woman plastered that close to me. When the music started, I swear that Tonya pressed against me so tightly, a sheet of paper would not have fit between us. To make matters worse, Tonya was tall enough so that all the places that made her a woman were perfectly aligned with the places that made me a man. By the time her generous hips had rubbed against me for ten seconds, my little Johnny Reb was rampant in all his parade ground splendor. I was mortified and tried to pull back, but Tonya had me in a death grip. "Don't you dare move, Mister Brock. This is the first time in my life I've made a man sprout one of those without giving him a pill first, and I am going to enjoy it as long as I can," she said dreamily. I glanced around and noticed we were in a dark back corner of the dance floor, so I nodded and pulled her even tighter against me. I let my hands slide down her waist until they rested on the womanly flare of her hips. Tonya sighed and wriggled even closer to me. By the time the dance was over, we were both in a lather. Tonya giggled as she led the way back to the table, shielding my predicament from reckless eyeballs. Tonya had no sooner sat down, than she was leaned over, whispering urgently in Helena's ear. Thankfully, the band took a break about then and I regained a measure of control. As I was regaining my composure, a waitress showed up with a bottle of champagne, five glasses and a couple of perfectly rolled cigarettes. Sonja raised her eyebrows at the waitress as she sat the tray on the table. "The wine is for the gentleman, compliments of the table behind me. The Doobies are on the house for livening the place up," said the pretty little waitress. Then the waitress dug into the front of her apron and handed me a stack of little rectangles made of stiff paper. "Some of the other patrons also wanted you to have their calling cards. Mines the one on top," she said with a wink. Before I could read the first slip of paper, Helena snatched the stack out of my hands. "We'll hold on to these for you," she said, handing the cards to Sonja. Before I could voice a protest for them garnisheeing my papers, Coleen stopped a man walking by that I recognized as the guitar player for the band. He politely stopped at our table and Coleen introduced me to him. "Jeremiah, this is Isaac Zion Feldman, he is a member of our project; Professor Feldman, this is Jeremiah Brock." The professor's eyebrows went up at the mention of my name, but he did not say anything. I stuck out my hand and told him how much I was enjoying the music as he returned my handshake. We started talking about music and before I knew it, I was accompanying him back to the bandstand to sit in with the musicians. Isaac introduced me to the other four band members and the fiddle player, a handsome Negro man named Jeffery, graciously handed me his instrument. I chatted with Jeff for a few minutes as I tuned his fiddle to suit my ear. He made a face at the slightly off pitch way I tuned the E-string, but did not make an issue of it. My doubts about if we could play together disappeared when I asked Isaac what we should try first, and he replied, "We listened to poor Johnny Lo's extraordinary recordings this afternoon, and are comfortable we can adapt our version of Sally Gooden and a few others to match your style. I'll announce you, you start off and we'll follow." I nodded and Isaac walked up to this metal frame that held a black cylinder at the top. I had marveled at the way the device had made his voice boom throughout the dancehall earlier. He grabbed the cylindrical metal thing in his hand and made me blush furiously with his introduction. "Ladies and Gentlemen, it is Pecos Posse's great pleasure to introduce you to the world's foremost living authority on authentic 19th century western music, Georgia Jeb." The crowd clapped politely and tittered at the whooping the women at our table were doing. I blushed, tipped my hat, and took a deep breath. Instead of holding the fiddle parallel to the ground, I pointed the neck downward and started sawing away. Now I was not showing off by doing that, I was just trying to carve me a niche using showmanship. I realized that, technically, I was no match for the Pecos Posse. However, as good as they were, their performance was uninspired. I figured the folks on the dance floor would enjoy themselves more if it was obvious I was having fun playing for them. I played with reckless abandon, and Isaac's bunch did yeomen's duty keeping up with me. I knew we were accomplishing something when folks started gathering around the stage, rhythmically clapping and stomping their feet. I pointed my bow at the banjo player and yelled, "Loud and fast, Mister Walker." Walker didn't miss a beat as he smoothly started finger picking and strumming for all he was worth. When he was the center of attention, I dropped both arms to my sides and started clogging. I let Walker play for about half a minute then pointed to Isaac. Isaac nodded and cut loose. The piano player and drummer had their moments in the sun before I tied it all up and brought the song to a rousing conclusion. Either the mostly female patrons liked us, or they were being very polite, because we received a nice ovation when we finished. I played two more numbers with the Pecos Posse before handing Jeff back his fiddle. I would have played longer, but it was not much fun being in a band that refused to have fun while they played. When I was walking off the stage, Isaac followed me to the edge. "It was a worthwhile experience performing with you, Jeremiah. Your skills are rudimentary, but for a primitive, you were entertaining nonetheless. You and I have a session scheduled tomorrow morning at ten, so I will see you then," Isaac said, his voice dismissive and condescending. I bit back what I wanted to say. Instead, as Ma had taught me, I tried to be the better man. "Thanks for letting me sit in with you all, Isaac, and please thank the rest of the Posse for me too." "I'm sure we benefited somewhat from the experience. We civilized men can find a valuable lesson in even the most plebian of endeavors," he replied. I grunted and walked away. At least my women thought I had played well. They and some of the other women patrons were highly complimentary of my fiddling. We were back at the table before Sonja picked up on my mood. When she asked me what was wrong, I told her. "Why are Feldman and those other men up there playing if they are obviously enjoying it so little? And while I'm asking questions, why is it that every man I have met here treats me as if I were a leper?" Sonja took my hand and kissed me on the cheek. "We'll talk about that later, Jeremiah. Right now everyone around you loves you and is enjoying your company. Focus on that fact and us, okay?" Sonja was right, of course, and I was being churlish, pouting about Isaac insulting me. For the rest of the evening, I did just what she suggested, and I had a marvelous time. The men of the future might not be much, but the women sure made up for it. It was almost midnight before they could finally drag me out of there. And even then, I only left when they promised we could come back the next night. As hard as it was for me to believe, my night became even more perfect when we made it to our apartment. As soon as we walked through the apartment door, Helena and Tonya each gave me a smoldering kiss before heading towards the smaller of the two bedrooms. Sonja grabbed my right arm and Coleen took my left. "Come on Cowboy, we have some unfinished business," Sonja said, her voice a low, sexy timbre. "Yes ma'am," I replied, grinning as if I were the village idiot. As it had been with Helena, making love with Sonja and Coleen transcended any sexual experience of my life. First off, there was no awkwardness between us as you would expect there to be, considering it was our first time together. Secondly, even though I had never been with two women at the same time, it seemed as if everything I did was exactly what the woman I was doing it to was dieing for. The experience actually became so intense I stopped and climbed out of bed. Sonja came scrambling after me, but I held up my hand and said, "Hold on a minute, Sonja, something just doesn't seem right about this." Sonja looked confused, but she stayed seated on the bed. Coleen was sitting up as well by then. She patted Sonja on the arm and started talking. "Jeremiah thinks this is too good to be real, Sonja. He thinks we are either faking our passion or that there is something wrong with us," Coleen said. When I nodded at Sonja's inquisitively arched eyebrows, Coleen continued. "We both know that we aren't faking it and there is nothing wrong with us, other than being in love with him. What he hasn't considered is that he is the problem, not us. I'll run some test in the lab tomorrow to confirm it, but I'm betting that his attraction is a combination of his manliness and his pheromones. I believe that even in his own time those traits attracted women to him. For us, the attraction is squared, because we have never been exposed to anyone remotely like him." Sonja nodded as if she understood perfectly. "That would explain the way Tonya acted. Usually, Tonya has nothing to do with males, so you could have knocked me over with a feather when she started riding his thigh while dancing." Coleen might have cleared it up for Sonja, but all her explanation did for me was make my head hurt. I had a few questions of my own, but as soon as I started to say something, Coleen put her finger to her lips and beckoned me back towards the bed. "We'll talk more later. Right now, it's time for us to show you how us modern-time cowgirls ride a stud tandem," she said with a cheeky grin. ------- Chapter 16 I woke up at seven the next morning with two beautiful women cuddled up against me. It felt so good, I laid quietly for a few minutes, reveling in the sensation. I would have stayed there another hour, had nature not called. While I was in the bathroom, I scraped off what little beard I had and brushed my teeth with the modern dental care items Coleen procured for me. Cleanliness and personal hygiene were certainly much simpler tasks here in the future. When I walked out of the bathroom, Sonja almost knocked me down rushing into it, and Helena was hot on her heels. "Don't ever hog the John first thing in the morning when you live with a bunch of women, Jeremiah," Coleen admonished. It was advice that I took to heart from that day forward. We were all dressed and sitting at the kitchen table by eight-thirty. Breakfast consisted of oatmeal with raisins, sweetened with honey. There was no meat or bread, and most horrible of all, no coffee. Except for the chilled orange juice, I would have been no worse off going outside and eating dirt. While we were sitting at the table drinking weak hot tea, the women finally answered all my questions about the men of this time. Here is what they told me as best I can remember their words. ------- By the year 2425, altered males were firmly established and the positive results of the genetic changes started to bear fruit. Stripped of their base desires and aggressiveness, men worked long and hard to pull the human race back from the brink of extinction. One consequence in the radical change in male behavior was a shift towards a female-centered society as men started moving away from their so called traditional roles. Men, devoted towards the betterment of mankind, moved into the sciences and education. Women took over the responsibility for the practical matters men could not be bothered with. Men began calling themselves Homo Libertad, (Liberated Man). A second consequence of the genetic altering was fewer male births, but longer male life expectancies. One in three children born was male, and men made up forty percent of the population. The single-mindedness of the men toward science and academics led to the passing of a law that required men to perform some sort of public service for at least sixteen hours a week. The law also mandated social interaction at least two times a week in a non-work related setting. Public service was the reason Isaac and the rest of the Pecos Posse formed their band. Music was not fun for them, but it allowed them to fulfill both obligations at once. Going to the dancehall also had an entirely different meaning for the males there last night than it had for the women. The women were there for fun, the men because they were required to go. The women did not dispute my observation that their men-folk were in effect monks, withdrawn from society and thinking themselves morally and intellectually superior to women. I was horrified at the picture the women painted. And I was astounded that they were apparently blind to what their manipulation of the basic nature of man had created. Even a backwoods muleskinner could see that their society was doomed to extinction, the very thing they thought they were preventing. Sonja stunned me with her explanation of their acceptance of men's conduct. "Jeremiah, for the last seventy-five years, men have actively worked at making us extinct or at least to make us not exist as we are now. They are doing that with the full backing of us women. That is the purpose of the time travel research and the reason we needed more Hawkingium. We are sending teams back in time to critical nexuses in history, to nudge it on a path different from the one taken. The creation of the apparatus to take people back is only a first step, and was probably the easiest to accomplish, because it was straight science. The difficult job is identifying critical events and how to change there outcome. Every viable city-state on Earth is involved in the project, yet we seem to be decades away from a solution." It was an amazing and audacious plan they had devised. As they explained how they thought subtle changes at certain critical junctures could cause the future to be much different, I was surprised that Tonya used an example from the Civil War. "Suppose that Stonewall Jackson hadn't been killed at Chancellorsville? Can you see how that might have changed the course of the war?" I saw that immediately, of course, because it had been a sad day for the Confederacy when we lost General Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson. Having him at the Battle of Gettysburg might have changed the outcome of that ghastly defeat, and preserved the Confederacy. From that point, the conversation became esoteric to the point of giving me a headache, but the gist of it boiled down to what Sonja called the paradox of time. Sonja's explanation caused the hackles on my neck to stand stiff. "The difficulty we are facing, Jeremiah, is the theory that a small change at one point in history will cause a ripple effect, based on everything that might be related to the person or event we change. For instance, suppose I went back in time and changed an event in history and it had an indirect effect on one of my ancestors. The result of that ripple might be that I was never born. And if I was never born, how could I go back and change anything?" The conversation made me dizzy with all its convoluted machinations. However, I did understand the enormity of what these future men were attempting, and I gained a new respect for them for their dedication. Still, I could not help but think they were taking the absolutely wrong approach. To my mind, it would be much better if they made the world a utopia by working on the future, instead of the past. ------- We walked out of the apartment building at fifteen minutes before nine in the morning. Our destination was the building in which we had arrived from my time. Was that only yesterday? While we were walking, Sonja was carrying on some sort of cryptic conversation on the small device they called a vid-com. Sonja's end of the conversation was mostly a series of yes or no answers, interspersed with an occasional, "I understand." Finally, she flipped the device shut and filled us all in. "The Pleiad has invoked the 'exception of 72' so they can avoid announcing Jeremiah's presence for a couple of days. They need time to figure out how he might best help us before telling everyone he's here," she said somberly. The other women stopped and looked at her in surprise. Me? Why I wore my usual expression of total bafflement. Sonja saw my confusion and gave me a smile. "The 'exception of 72' is a clause in our Constitution that allows the Pleiad to keep something secret from the public for three days. When they announce whatever they've been concealing and the reason they hid it, the citizens vote whether to keep the councilors or dismiss them. The 'exception of 72' has only been invoked twice in our history." I asked what I thought was an obvious question. "Why are they doing that? I mean at least twenty or thirty people know I'm here, so how can they keep it a secret?" Coleen had the answer to that. "Everyone working on the time project is required to keep silent until the Pleiad makes an announcement. That's the way the project was set up at its inception, and it has been that way for fifty years." Mention of the project raised yet another question. "So if the Pleiad has to reveal everything to the public, why isn't the fact that you all left to visit my time common knowledge?" I asked. I was stunned buy Helena's answer. "Because we were only gone less than a nano-second in our time, Honey. Time on the up-stream side does not move, no matter how long you are gone. That's why we had to leave your time exactly when we did. Our departure time and location had to be precisely calibrated in order to return us right back to when and where we started. Working out the formula for computing synchronization times and locations is what took fifty years to accomplish. Building the actual apparatus only took a few months. "The Pleiad's exception order includes everything that happened from 1030 hours yesterday through 1029 hours day after tomorrow." ------- Wouldn't you know that after all the talk about the idiosyncrasies of the future man, my first appointment of the day was with Isaac from the Pecos Posse. Isaac managed to get my goat in fewer than thirty seconds when he said, "It would be best if you called me Doctor Feldman, Jeremiah, so that we can establish the proper doctor/patient relationship." "Fine by me Doctor Feldman, as long as you remember I am Mister Brock," I replied icily. Doctor Feldman did not make me better disposed towards him when he gave me some written tests that took me almost three hours to complete. The first test of one hundred questions asked things of a nature that you would answer in school. I have to admit that test was sort of fun. The second, and much longer test, asked basically the same dozen questions asked about a thousand different ways. I might have been a backwoods muleskinner, but it was still clear to me what the test measured, to whit: how a person would react to some unpleasant situations. After the first series of the questions, I started marking the answer exactly opposite of how I actually felt. That made the whole exercise almost better. Old Isaac ... I mean Doctor Feldman ... collected the tests from me and passed them on to one of his student flunkies for grading. When the serious looking young man had departed, Feldman started asking me questions about my life and my family. Feldman seemed fascinated about my recollects, and asked me some extremely personal questions. I took a page from the book of JC Colbert, and told him some outrageous hogwash. Feldman was as disappointed as I was relieved, when Tonya came in and collected me for lunch. "We'll finish our discussion tomorrow, Mister Brock, and go over your test results," Feldman gushed. I grunted noncommittally, pigs would take to the air in flight before I came into that room again under my own power. Tonya escorted me to a community dining room, where Sonja, Coleen, Helena and Sarah Hunnicut, the doctor from yesterday, were sitting at a table large enough for ten or twelve people. As we walked towards the table, Tonya whispered in my ear. "Coleen wants you to pay plenty of attention to Sarah during lunch. She wants you to sit next to her and casually touch her as often as you can without being obvious about it." I shrugged in reply, "Okay, I guess." When we arrived at the table, the other women stood up and I gave them all, including a surprised Sarah, a big hug. While we were up, we all fell in line at a long shiny steel counter. At the start of the counter, we picked up trays that we pushed along a small ledge in the counter. Spaced along the ledge were bowls and plates of food. The food items were labeled so I grabbed a few items I was comfortable with. I ended up with a salad, a bowl of navy bean soup, a plate of something called chicken in wine sauce and an apple. Oh yeah, and I grabbed a couple of flat breads slightly thicker than Mexican tortillas. I was hungry, so I sat down and dug right in. It turned out to be extremely easy for me to pay attention to Sarah, because the food was so tasteless, it did not offer even the slightest distraction. The only part of the meal I enjoyed even a little was the bean soup, and that was because I put about a half a bottle of pepper sauce on it. The chicken dish was bland and rubbery. I took a couple of bites and pushed my plate away. "This chicken does not do anything for me. I have a hankering for some dead mammal meat of the bovine persuasion, Ladies, so what say I take you all out for a steak tonight?" I said. What I thought was an excellent suggestion was met with silence and shrugged shoulders. Coleen answered for the bunch of them. "We don't eat meat of any type, Jeremiah. Raising animals for their flesh is a waste of resources. Why go to the trouble and expense, when we can replicate the flavor so easily, using tofu and soybean mash as a base? Even though we live in a fertile valley with plenty of water, raising enough of a variety of foods is a real challenge for us. And now that the outlands are unsettled, trade in food stuffs has dwindled down to practically nothing. "Of course the health aspect of diet also plays a large role in our eating habits. A diet high in protein from red meats is very unhealthy. Today, for instance, your soup has twice the protein of an equal weight of meat, yet the beans are free of fat." I stared at Coleen for a few seconds, hoping she was joking. I mean, if she thought that the tasteless white clumps were a good imitation of chicken, she would pass out eating the real thing. I have to assume she was not joshing me, because she cracked nary a smile. The future, already suspect to me because of the chemical gelding of men, looked even bleaker when I considered life without beef and pork in it. But, wonder of wonders, the apple was juicy, crisp and delicious. So, as I was saying, the food did not distract me from doing Coleen's bidding and paying some attention to her friend Sarah. I figured that Coleen probably didn't want Sarah to feel uncomfortable at the closeness we all shared. I did not know that Sarah was wearing a device designed to measure changes in her body while we dined together. It wasn't as if being nice to Sarah was a chore or anything like that, anyway, because she was very pretty with her luculent brown eyes and bee-stung ruby lips. It also did not hurt that she was exceedingly well padded, yet wasp waisted. What I immediately noticed was that Sarah was over the bout of shyness she'd exhibited just the day before. I do not mean that she suddenly tried to be the center of attention or anything like that; instead, she just seemed more comfortable in my presence. Half way through the meal, we were holding hands under the table, and she had one of her very large, very firm breasts pressed against my forearm as she leaned across me to speak with Coleen. Now even hillbilly muleskinners know that a woman does not accidentally do that, so I flexed my arm and nudged the substantial orb. Sarah leaned against me harder and kept talking. From the messhall, the women led me upstairs to a large, dimly lit room filled with strange pieces of machinery. Until I walked into that room, my being in the future had not really registered with me, because almost everything about the place was familiar to me. I mean the buildings, the way people dressed and even the 'trolley' were close enough to something I had experienced in my time not to shock me. The strangest thing so far to me had been the gelded men and the equality of the women. The contents of that room and my experiences there changed all that with a vengeance. The place made me uneasy as soon as I walked through the door, because there was not a solitary thing in the room that I could identify. The place seemed a bedlam of eerily glowing panels, whisper-like whirring noises and blinking red, yellow and green lights. In the center of the room was a raised platform about the size of a coffin. Some sort of metal contraption arched over it from rails set in the floor. The platform was surrounded on three sides by desks with rows of the glowing panels and blinking lights. In front of each desk was a tall-backed leather chair on wheels. I stopped short two steps into the room and looked around warily. I blushed when I caught myself reaching for the pistol that normally rested on my hip. I stopped so quickly that Tonya sprang past me, the large stunner in her hand. Coleen and Sarah had preceded me into the room, and they turned around at Tonya's sudden movement. By now, all five women were in the room and looking at me quizzically. "What is this place?" I asked, my voice tightly controlled. Coleen put her hand on my arm and gave me a smile. "Relax, Jeremiah. This is only a Mediscan Unit. It uses electricity, light energy and magnet pulsations to diagnose and correct injuries and health problems." I nodded my understanding, but her explanation did not do much to reassure me. The room had an aura to it that grated on my nerves like fingernails on a slate board. "Fine, now I have seen it, so let's go somewhere else," I said. The smile on Coleen's pretty face faded into a slight frown. "There is no other place for us today, Love. You are scheduled here for the afternoon to complete the medical exam that was cut short by the excitement yesterday. The procedure is totally painless; in fact, you'll sleep through the whole boring thing." It did not set well on my stomach, but I acquiesced so as not to appear a total coward. Before I could say Jack Sprat, I was naked as a jaybird, lying on the strangely warm and soft platform, the arch humming softly over my feet. The platform molded to my body even better than the amazing mattress on the bed in my room. Coleen, standing behind one of the desks looking over the top of what she called the 'data console', asked me if I was ready. I exhaled and drew in another big calming breath. "Ready as I will ever be, I reckon," I replied. Coleen smiled and leaned down for a second. When she looked back up, her image was shimmery around the edges. "I activated a containment field around the scanner, Jeremiah, so things might look slightly distorted to you. All you have to do is breathe deeply and count backwards from one hundred, and this will be over before you know it." I did as she said, but I lost my concentration at ninety-five. I nodded off into that place where you are almost asleep, but you are still aware of what is going on around you. I would learn later that I should have been totally unconscious for what followed. When I stopped counting, I felt the table firm up around my right hand and then a pin prick on the index finger of the same hand. A few seconds later, this disembodied flat voice echoed around me. "DNA match confirms subject as neo-citizen, Brock, Jeremiah E. Omnicard number not assigned, medipay guaranteed by order of the Pleiad. Limited records exist for, Brock, Jeremiah E. Existing blood analysis contains unresolved anomalies." Coleen's voice replaced the disembodied one. "Start scan. Confirm blood anomalies during scan," she directed. The hum coming from the arch at my feet changed pitch, and fewer than fifteen seconds later, the flat voice returned. "Poorly resolved fracture, left foot, third metatarsal ... correct or ignore?" Coleen said, "Correct." The arch made a beeping noise and my left middle toe that a mule had stepped on not two months ago started tingling. The scanning process continued in that manner up both legs. The scan voice stopped once at my right knee that sometimes ached when it rained. The tingling sensation in that knee lasted longer than the pause at my toe. I think if I were fully awake, I would have been scared witless at what was happening to me, but in this dream-like place, I just marveled at how good places the machine lingered at felt when it moved on. I remember actually feeling pretty smug that the scan only found two small problems between my feet and my hips. The smugness evaporated on the next beep. "Precancerous mass on dorsal surface of left testicle ... correct or ignore?" And if that wasn't bad enough, next was, "strangulated blood vessel has decreased erectile function by fifteen percent ... correct or ignore?" "Correct," whooped five women in unison. And so it went. I did not have any concept of passing time, so caught up was I in the procedure of cataloging my body's faults. The amazing machine could not repair everything it discovered. A few items required courses of medication or lifestyle and dietary changes. There were also a couple of items that Coleen vetoed changing, they came up during the wrap up analysis of my blood. "Subject is genetically outside acceptable parameters and subject is capable of spontaneous erection ... correct or ignore?" The procedure ended up taking more than six hours. I could barely walk when it was over, and all the women were tired also. It embarrassed me when I found out that the annual full scan on an average citizen lasted fewer than thirty minutes. My plans for returning to Pecos Pete's went out the window when we finally dragged ourselves back to the apartment. I managed to eat a couple of slices of leftover pizza before crawling into bed around eight. I slept for twelve solid hours. When I woke up in the morning, I was alone in the bed. I stood and stretched, feeling too good for it not to be a sin. My vision was sharper and my hearing, which had deteriorated because of the war, was much improved. To top it off, my little soldier was bigger and harder than I could remember him ever being. I grinned and strutted to the indoor facilities. I told Coleen about my experiences on the platform as we were eating our porridge that next morning. She was clearly amazed and more than a little concerned. "We used enough anesthesia on you to tranquilize one of your mules, Honey. We had no base line measurements of your tolerance, so we gave you almost double what we usually administer to a male. Because males have a much lower threshold for tolerating pain, you were administered three times what a female receives. Was the procedure painful to you?" She looked relieved when I said I had felt tingling and heat occasionally, but none of it was actually painful. She nodded, then launched into another topic. "The results of the scan and our measurements of Sarah's response to you show some amazing adaptations that we have never seen or even heard of. For instance, the size of your adrenal glands is twice our norm, and your lean muscle mass is twenty-five percent higher than ours. Tonya says that she can put you on a cardio workout program to reduce your body fat content to our norm and it would be closer to forty percent. Also, as I suspected, you produce pheromones that our males don't. Women of our time are very sensitive to those pheromones in a positive way. The opposite is true with our males; they are repelled instead of attracted." I had figured out the part about me attracting women and repelling men, based on my experiences here so far. Coleen simply gave it a name. The physical improvement remarks, though, were unexpected and actually stung my feelings. "I don't think I am that fat, my Ma said I was just big boned," I said defensively. Well after some reassurances from the women that I wasn't really that fat, I asked Tonya about these exercises Coleen mentioned. Tonya pointed out the window where some men and women were running along at a seriously fast clip. The men were wearing short pants and no shirts. She told me most people 'jogged' for five to ten miles every other day, but she would start me out with a shorter distance. Tonya actually seemed excited about the idea of us running around as if we had lost our minds. For the life of me, I could not understand that concept at all. I mean, if you weren't going anywhere in particular, why run? I grunted noncommittally in reply. I was in the process of showing my butt over going to visit Doctor Feldman again, when Sonja's vidcom chirped. It was the Pleiad headman, and he took me off the hook with Feldman, because the council wanted to see me as soon as possible. The women made a big fuss about me showering twice, wearing this goop under my arms and smearing some sort of pomade in my hair. Then they powdered my body with some talcum. Once I was dressed in my modern clothes, the women all stood around me and sniffed me as if we were dogs making new friends. Coleen pulled out a pair of tight rubber gloves, helped me stretch them over my paws so my bare skin didn't touch the chairman's, and off we went. When we arrived at the nicely appointed, but not over decorated Pleiad Chamber, the women sat me as far down the table as they could get away with. That, added to Coleen's precautions, seemed to have an effect, as my meeting with the council was much less antagonistic than my meetings with any other future men. The Council Chairman greeted me kindly and officially welcomed me to Paradise Valley. We jawed for a couple of minutes about this and that, until he cleared his throat and explained the unscheduled meeting. "Mister Brock, some time during the night last night, a gang of Outland scum attacked an experimental farm that is on the lower fringe of the valley. The farm had recently successfully mutated some grain and tuber plants to grow rapidly in our climate. The Outlanders stole all the seed stock and destroyed the remainder. That project was ten years in the making, and we had high hopes of harvesting crops from their seeds later this year. Two men were killed in the attack and five women are missing. The attackers used energy pulse weapons, in violation of our society's most sacred law. "I am not sure what you could do to help us, but I thought we had nothing to lose from asking your opinion. I have received very conflicting reports about you. Doctors Mendez and Feldman think you are a savage, and should be returned immediately to your time and kind, while Ms Ferren, my most trusted aide, and Doctor O'Neil say you are completely trustworthy and competent. I am willing to suspend any judgment on the matter and let you prove yourself if you want. Any ideas about how we can defend ourselves?" The big cheese stopped talking and gave me this benign look as if he were doing me a favor. I knew that look, I had seen it on many a politician (officers were the worst politicians of all) when they thought they had you hornswoggled. I was prepared for him to ask something like that, but defense was not my specialty. I shrugged and answered him anyway. "I need an arrest warrant for this woman who calls herself Queen Elizabeth, two horses or mules with tack, a map of these outlands and my weapons. The best way to kill a snake is cut off its head." The Chairman blanched at my analogy, but nodded his head in agreement. "Done and done," he said. ------- Chapter 17 Even though the full Pleiad endorsed the Chairman's agreement, the plan was far from "done and done." One reason for that was the direct government participation of the citizenry. In addition, as is always the case with officers and politicians, nothing is ever as simple as it first sounds. For one thing, the Pleiad had to make my presence known to the citizens of Paradise Valley. Then they had to explain why they kept it a secret for two days, and finally, they had to stand for a vote of confidence. The big chief of the Pleiad handled that adroitly, by first announcing the successful testing of the time machine and the acquisition of the Hawkingium. Next he slipped me into the picture by relating how I had assisted Sonja and her team and saved them from the Indian attack. That was pretty funny in itself, because the chairman's name was Joseph Amerind Bearclaw. The chairman made it clear that my being there was beyond the Pleiad's control, but they were inclined to utilize any special skills I had until they could send me packing back to 1869. With that in mind, he told the populace that I had offered my services in their vexing problem with the Outlanders, and the council had accepted. Details of that help were being worked out, even as he spoke. The old boy didn't lie for a second, because there were details aplenty. One of those details was a plebiscite for a warrant for one Miss Elizabeth Smith, (aka Queen Elizabeth the Seventh.) The warrant would be executed by a duly appointed officer of the court. The Pleiad Chairman neatly sidestepped having to put my name up for a citizen vote by recognizing my status from when I was Marshall of Cheyenne. The Pleiad simply enacted a reciprocal law enforcement agreement between the city/state of Paradise Valley California and the city of Cheyenne, Wyoming. They further resolved that the agreement would go before the citizens for a vote as soon as Cheyenne officials signed it also. These future men might be without ambition, but they sure were cunning. The fine citizens of Paradise Valley, angry about the attack on the research farm, overwhelmingly backed the Pleiad. What amazed me was that the entire process of the explanation and vote took less than half a day. I had to wonder what these future folks had in mind for Queen Elizabeth's punishment. I mean, as opposed as they were to violence, I couldn't see them lynching her. I did not hang around the council chambers waiting for results though, because I had an appointment with a dentist. Now I was no stranger to dentists, we had a very good one in Cheyenne that I had visited just last winter. The dentist of the future was not nearly as awe and fear inspiring as the Mediscan thing but she made Doc Wheatley in Cheyenne seem as backwards as an Indian medicine man. In only a couple of hours, Doctor Davis and her assistants had all my bad teeth tended too (she said I had two minor 'cavities') and my choppers were as pearly white as every one else's here. They even did something to my teeth they said would prevent them from ever rotting. Most blessed of all, it was completely pain free as compared to the torture session old Doc Wheatley conducted. From the dentist's we went to the 'cafeteria' for another fake meat meal. The label on the plate said 'Salisbury Steak' and Sonja raved about the subtilely nuanced sauce with its hint of Burgundy. Trust me, it was shoe sole in nasty brown gravy. The only thing nice about the meal was the company, as Sarah Hunnicutt joined us again. I found out Sarah was not there just for my wonderful company, when they led me straight back to Mediscan Unit Seven. I balked, dug in my heels and refused to enter the room again. I might as well have saved my breath, though, as Coleen sighed and turned to Tonya. "If he doesn't go in, stun him," my no longer favorite doctor said. I stood there with my mouth hanging open as Tonya jumped back out of my reach and whipped out the big stunner she had been issued. "How big a jolt?" Tonya asked as she fiddled with a knob on the side of the thing. Coleen shrugged and replied, "A triple dose of anesthesia didn't put him under yesterday, so you better turn the juice way up." I threw up my hands in surrender, spun on my heels and walked through the door. I was not a happy man by the turn of events, and I guess it showed on my face. Coleen looked just as stubborn and angry as I felt. "Don't fight us on this, Jeremiah. You should know by now that we'd never do anything to harm you. Today you are going to receive an infusion of vaccines for a spectrum of diseases. Doctor Hunnicutt recreated the vaccines from our archives this morning. In six hours you will be immune to all the killing diseases of your time, from small pox to influenza. You'll also be inoculated against some of our modern bugs, like mutated malaria and radiation plague." I nodded mutely and started shedding my clothes. I had to wonder why she had not offered the explanation first, instead of ordering me shot. Now I felt like an ass once again, both for not trusting them and for showing fear in the face of something I had already been through once. Coleen stopped me from disrobing farther once my shirt was off. She had me hop up onto the table and Sarah handed me a cup of some greenish, very sweet liquid to drink. When Sarah stepped back away from me, Coleen once again activated the 'containment field'. "Very good, Sweetie. We are delivering the vaccines to you in three different ways. You just took the oral component. Next, you are going to receive an intravenous dosing, followed by a misting that you will breathe in. Hold still, put your right hand on the table face up and turn your head to the left. You will feel a slight pin prick when the IV is inserted. Just relax, remember to take deep breaths and it will be over in five minutes," Coleen lectured. Well hell, it was over in fewer than five minutes and I felt even stupider for the fuss I raised. I pulled the stretchy black shirt over my head and followed them out. As soon as the door closed behind us as we exited the room, I started apologizing. "I am very sorry, ladies, for acting so childishly. That room takes away my ability to think rationally. I think everything in there seems mysterious and sinister to me, because I cannot comprehend any of it." The women shrugged and all of them except Coleen said it was not a problem. Coleen though, stopped walking and turned to face me with a pained expression on her face. "I should have thought of that, Jeremiah, and done more to make you comfortable in there. Instead I treated you as if you were one of my other patients. When we have some free time, I'll explain all about our medical system, okay?" I put my arm around her and squeezed. "That would be great," I said. "But I am still going to tan your pretty little butt for threatening me. And while I'm at it, I'm going to fix Miss Tonya's wagon too." The women all laughed as if I was joking. We would see about that. It was one thing to tease me; it was a horse of a different color to treat me with disrespect. I was wondering what we were doing next, but I would be danged if I asked one of them. They'd had enough fun at my expense already today. I figured it out on my own anyway, when we turned down corridor G3. I had been taking note of the numbering system since yesterday, so I knew the Pleiad chambers were at the end of this hallway. One of the Pleiad's minions stopped us in the anteroom to prevent us from walking into the chambers. He pointed to a glowing red sign above the door that read 'On The Air'. "The chairman is thanking the citizens for the vote of confidence; he'll only be a few more minutes." Sure enough, ten minutes later, we were sitting at the long table again, as a beaming chairman Bearclaw explained the results of the voting. "The vote was quick and decisive," he gushed. "Over eighty percent of the citizens expressed confidence in our actions. The vote is slower on the warrant issue, but the percentage approving is about the same." As the chairman bubbled away, my nose detected the smell of coffee. I whipped my head around as a man and a woman rolled in a coffee and tea service along with a tray of pastries. The smell of coffee had me slobbering like a hungry dog in a butcher shop. As the beverages were being served, I noticed that most of the men opted for coffee, while all the women except Tonya had tea. The coffee was prepared and served in the Spanish way: very strong, in small cups and with plenty of cream and sugar. I took one of the bigger tea cups, poured in about a third of a cup of the coffee and filled it the rest of the way with hot water. I blew across the rim of the cup, took a sip and sighed in contentment. A councilor sitting across from me raised his cup in my direction as if toasting me. "Coffee is vexingly hard to grow here Mister Brock, even in our hothouses. Plus most women detest the stuff, so we seldom have it. Today, though, we drink it to celebrate the successful trip back to your time, the acquisition of the Hawkingium and today's vote. I sincerely hope that in a week or so, we will be celebrating again when you bring in that Smith woman." After a few hearty 'here — heres', Bearclaw told me the plan. "I think we have covered all your requirements Mister Brock. Tomorrow morning, we will transport you, your party and your supplies to a riding stable located mid-valley. The owner of the stables will provide you with whatever livestock you need. Besides Senior Agent Larson, how many security personnel will you require?" I shot Tonya a look and shook my head. "I don't need anyone, including Miss Larson. I need the ability to move fast and with stealth. Even one person will slow me down and make movement harder." I could not voice my real objection which was that, based on my experiences with these people, they would be more hindrance than help if there was serious trouble. The chairman's eyebrows arched up and he leaned to his right to whisper something to the man sitting there. After an exchange or two of whispers, Bearclaw nodded and turned back to me. "You going alone is unacceptable Mister Brock; you will at least need a guide familiar with the outlands. Agent Larson spent three years at one of the Fringe outposts providing security to caravans. She will be an asset to you. Administrator Ferren will also accompany you. She will be the council's eyes and ears out there. If you change your mind about taking more personnel, inform Miss Ferren." It was still early afternoon when we finished with the Pleiad. I was fine with that though, because a nap sounded like a very good idea about then. The women cooperated with me for once, and let me catch a cat nap. I woke up feeling much better about all that had happened that day. I shrugged off the experience in Medscan Seven and stopped worrying about the Pleiad forcing me to take Tonya and Sonja with me to the outlands. My good mood lasted until I sat down at the table and contemplated the meatless meal laid out in front of me. It looked as fancy as anything I'd ever seen, but it was as insubstantial as fog. I did not complain about the food though, because everyone else was eating the same thing. Sonja had some news for me towards the end of the meal. "Jeremiah, we put it off for as long as we could, but this evening, Coleen, Helena and I have a debriefing with the time project's senior scientists. Will you be okay staying here with Tonya?" I looked at Sonja with my poker face. "If Coleen has not put her up to shooting me, I guess it will be alright." I answered. Tonya actually blushed and looked down at her plate, but Coleen's jaw tightened in annoyance. "We've been over that, Jeremiah. I'm your doctor, for goodness sake, you know I would never let any harm come to you," she said crossly. I was beginning to see that Doctor Colleen O'Neil was a different person in her own time and place. Here and now, she appeared accustomed to ruling the roost, and she had little patience for anyone disagreeing with her. That was going to lead to some interesting times between us, because ever since I was paroled from the Confederate Army, I had a serious aversion to taking orders. My friend and brother-in-law, JC Colbert, said I had the same ornery disposition as my mules. We finished our meal and my time travel companions departed for their meeting. They all gave me hugs and kisses before they stampeded out the door. Tonya and I remained seated at the table. She was avoiding looking at me. I cleared my throat to capture her attention. "I was teasing, Tonya. I was pretty sure you were not going to shoot me on Coleen's whim." She nodded her head in confirmation. "I was just playing along," she moaned. I gave her a grin and nodded my understanding. I had some surprisingly warm feelings for Tonya, and we were about to be out in the badlands of the future together for who knew how long. I thought I had better at least warn her of how I felt. "Tonya, I know that your job is to keep me out of mischief, but before we ride out tomorrow, you need to know that I am powerful attracted to you and not just physically either. You might be better off passing that chore to someone else instead of being stuck nursemaiding a moonstruck muleskinner." Tonya's wide-set hazel eyes opened in surprise, then she smiled the smile she gave me when we danced together. That smile transformed her attractive features into a thing of beauty. "I don't think that will be a problem at all, Mister Brock. And for the record, my assignment now is to protect you, not police your conduct. Not everyone likes you, but they do not doubt your integrity." Before I could reply to that, Tonya excused herself. "I need a shower," she said, "then we can talk about our trip." Tonya walked to the bathroom and I settled onto the comfortable sofa with the history book from Sonja. I lost myself in the fascinating manner in which the authors of the book presented the political and social consequences of the reconstruction of the south after the War Between the States. The retribution the Union doled out made southerners second class citizens for nearly a century. I looked up from my book when I heard the door to Tonya's room open. I was slightly surprised to notice it was almost dark outside, but I was completely flabbergasted by the sight of Senior Agent Lawson. See, she was draped in this diaphanous white gown that hid her body from direct view, yet highlighted every big beautiful curve. Tonya was at least six feet tall and she probably weighed one-seventy. Her shoulders were wide for a woman and she carried herself proudly erect. Of course that emphasized her spectacular breasts. Her waist nipped in severely, her stomach was flat, her hips perfectly proportioned and her legs were impossibly long. Both Tonya's feet and hands were long and slender, her wrists and ankles surprisingly trim. When I finally dragged my eyes up to her face, her hazel orbs bored into mine. Tonya had a generous mouth with very kissable lips; her nose was unremarkable, but fit her face. She had shortish chestnut hair that barely reached her collar. Tonight, her still damp hair was pushed behind her dainty, shell like ears. Tonya stalked across the room, tawny and graceful as a tiger. Once at the couch, she knelt, straddled my lap and put her hands on my shoulders. "Tell me some more about how much you like me, Cowboy, then show me how much you want me," she said. Her voice was husky and low pitched. It made the hackles on the back of my neck stand up. The feel of her on me made my heart careen around in my chest. I growled, put my hands under her generous behind and stood up. She squealed in surprise, then wrapped her legs and arms around me. I carried her to her bedroom and eased her down on the bed. She reluctantly let me go, then she sighed in contentment as I stripped off my clothes. An hour later and temporarily sated, Tonya and I lay on the bed, trying to catch our breath. Her head was on my chest, her long muscular leg tossed haphazardly across my thighs. Our love making had been stupendous. I do not think any two people could fit together better than Tonya and I. She was incredibly passionate, stronger than any woman I had ever met, and she was as limber as a river otter. It took a few minutes, but our normal breathing finally recovered. When it did, Tonya pushed herself up onto her elbow and looked down at me. "I can't smell you anymore, Jeremiah, and I still feel myself falling in love with you," she said in amazement. I rolled over on top of her and pinned her down to the bed. I pushed myself up on my arms and pushed my revived staff against her. Her eyes widened when she felt my hardness. Tonya loved it when I acted manly and strong. When we broke apart after another half hour of passion, I told Tonya how beautiful I thought she was. She was truly surprised that I thought that. "You don't mind that I'm one of the Unevolved?" she asked incredulously. She read the lack of understanding in my expression and explained. "The breakthrough in genetic engineering that made possible the alteration of males, also allowed women to alter their female children. Women could sit down with the geneticist and custom design their child. At the time of the genetics breakthrough, the harshness of life had eased enough that people had time for pursuits outside of just surviving. It seemed only natural that genealogy would become very popular. "People started taking pride in their ancestors and as an extension of that pride, they started programming traits they admired into their children. If a woman identified with an ancestor from Ireland, it was a simple matter to alter your unborn child's genetics so that he or she was born looking Irish. Today, over half of the population of Paradise Valley belongs to one of about forty loosely knit clans based on genetic heredity. Clan identity is part of those peoples' name. About two thirds of women back then chose appearance modification. "At the same time, doctors were touting genetic changes that improved health and longevity. Women who opted for the hereditary changes also signed on for the healthy body template. The researchers determined that the ideal height for men was between five feet nine inches and six feet, and for women it was five-seven to five-nine. Weight range was one-thirty-five to one-forty-five for women, and one-fifty-five to one-seventy for men. The healthy body template also turns off the gene that allows the body to store fat and it changes the genetic mix that produces enzymes in the digestive tract. Sonja spoke of food the way she did the other night, because her metabolism is so efficient. Altered men and women can extract over ninety percent of the nourishment from anything they eat. In addition, as soon as the nourishment they need is extracted, they lose their appetites. "Only about twelve percent of the population is unaltered. Although not blatant about it, the altered ones look down their noses at us. Some of then even call us Proto-Neanderthals. The government doesn't outright discourage natural selection, but they highly encourage the healthy body template. Because of that, there are fewer of us naturals in each succeeding generation. Today about ninety-five percent of women opt for genetic modification of their children. Sarah Hunnicutt and I are the only unaltered women working around the time project." I did not understand many of the words she used or the concepts she described, but I think I got the gist of it. It was an incredible story and it confirmed that these future men had advance way beyond my grasp in the field of medicine. Everything else about the future was disappointing because, in most things, they were not that far ahead of 1869. I pulled Tonya against my side and answered her original question. "Tonya, I do not care what they call you here. To me, you are a beautiful, intelligent and extremely passionate woman. What could a man ask for beyond that? I plan on keeping you as long as you let me." Tonya's face lit up with one of those smiles I love, and she rolled over on top of me. "I am never going to let you forget you said that, Jeremiah Brock, and I'm not going to ever let you regret it either." We fell asleep before the other women returned from their debriefing. I fell asleep lying on my side, spooned up against Tonya's back, my arm draped over her side, holding one of her large breasts. I awoke at six the next morning, feeling gloriously alive and content. I think waking up with Tonya still sleeping sprawled across my chest had a bunch to do with that. I slipped out of bed and for once, found no competition for the bathroom. I took care of my needs and luxuriated in a nice hot shower. I was out of the shower, frowning over a cup of the weak greenish tea the moderns preferred, when Tonya popped out of the bedroom, redressed in her white gown. She gave me a grin and a wave before dashing to the bathroom. Tonya and I yakked for half and hour before the other three women woke up and joined us. I dutifully ate my oatmeal gruel and smiled to myself when Tonya took a bite and winked at me. From our talk earlier that morning, I knew Tonya preferred the same sorts of food I did, and she said game was plentiful in the outlands. Equally important, and making me love her even more, was Tonya's admission that she had at least five pounds of coffee horded. Tonya's public service job was as a restaurant hostess. Her pay was a few ounces of coffee for each night she worked. At nine, Coleen and Helena departed for their duties over in the big medical building. Coleen was slightly out of sorts about not going with us to the outlands. She also did not like it much that I slept in a bed with her not in it last night. Once they were on their way, I asked Sonja why Coleen was acting the way she was. Sonja laughed and shook her head. "Coleen is from an important family in a powerful clan. Add to that the fact that she is absolutely brilliant. In fact, Coleen helped Helena crack the harmonic resonance equation for transmitting living organisms through time. So Coleen is used to having things her way, and you aren't cooperating as she feels you should," Sonja explained. I grunted and shook my head. I did not care who she was or what she had accomplished, if she did not start treating me with the same respect I showed her, we were soon parting ways. At nine-thirty that morning, we caught a ride on a vehicle smaller than the trolley for our trip out to the livestock ranch. I was relieved that this horseless coach had a driver, even if he did aim the thing with a round barrel hoop looking device. I also thought he was going way to fast for comfort as the scenery swished by in a blur. Tonya explained that the ranch was located in an area called the Fringe. The Fringe was lands reclaimed from the outlands, and turned to productive use as the valley's population and needs increased. The folks who lived out there were a hardy lot, who worked tirelessly to clear and turn to productive use lands that had been fallow for centuries. We passed through the residential section that encircled the university complex and then rode past neatly laid out farms and fields. Our trip took about an hour. I swear that riding up to the ranch was almost like riding up to our place in Cheyenne. The house and barn were bigger and nicer than ours, but they were constructed of logs the same as ours. There were a couple of corrals and a few fenced off paddocks where a number of mules and horses contentedly munched on the sweet summer grass. When we exited the vehicle, I started to head for the fence to look at the horses and mules grazing in the small pastures. Tonya grabbed my arm and pulled me back. "Time for that later, cowboy. Right now you need to meet the person who owns those beasts." I blushed and nodded. It was not like me to be that rude. Before I could say anything, the house door opened and a woman walked out on the porch. I looked at her, my mouth fell open and I spun towards Tonya. But Tonya ignored me and waved happily to the woman. "Hey Mom," she hollered, "look what I found." I am willing to bet a buzzard could have flown into my mouth as slack jawed as I was. I was astounded, because the woman on the porch looked as if she were Tonya's twin sister. Finding out it was her mother was mind-boggling, since the woman on the porch could not have been over thirty years old. If Tonya had not grabbed my arm again and dragged me towards the porch, I would probably still be standing there gawking. Tonya made the introductions. "Mom, this is Sonja Ferren, Councilor Bearclaw's representative and this is Jeremiah Brock. Sonja, Jeremiah, this is my mother, Carol Lawson." Miz Lawson politely shook hands with Sonja and then turned to me. I lightly took her proffered hand, but I was still gaping at her. Up close she looked as young as she had from the ground. Finally, my brain activated itself and I spoke. "It is a pleasure meeting you Miz Lawson. You are just as beautiful as your daughter; you must have been a child bride." Miz Lawson's eyes widened when our hands touched, and she took a deep breath. Tonya laughed and separated her mothers hand from mine. "I forgot all about that happening. Settle down Mom and show us some horses." Miz Lawson blinked a couple of times and jerked her head up and down. "Of course, sorry Mister Brock, I don't know what came over me." Carol Lawson had bred some amazing animals. Her horses, mules and donkeys were the best I have ever seen. While Sonja and Carol looked over horses, Tonya and I checked out the mules. The mules were all tall, stout and looked as smart as whips. These were the type of mules I wanted to raise with my Percheron mares. It took me only five minutes to pick out two that reminded me of Zeke. Tonya already had a horse and mule picked out for herself. We would only need two pack animals, so once Sonja selected a mount, Carol led us and the animals to the barn. Once in the barn, Carol showed us the tack room. The tack was old and well used, but it was in good repair and well maintained. Most of the gear was of the English type, but thankfully, Carol had a couple of western saddles. Tonya stayed paired up with me to keep my scent from distracting her mother again. While we were across the room finding a saddle for me, I leaned over and whispered in Tonya's ear. "Better stick close to me, beautiful, so I do not grab the wrong Lawson." Tonya squealed and hit me hard enough on the arm to numb it to my fingertips. Carol and Sonja looked at us quizzically, but I just shrugged and rubbed my bicep while Tonya was trying to stifle her laughter. We eventually sorted out what we needed, outfitted the animals we were riding and took them for a tryout. Sonja appeared to be an adequate rider, but Tonya posted in the saddle as if she had been born there. We rode for half an hour until we were all comfortable with our mount, then headed back. We secured the animals in the barn for the night, then went up to the house. Carol had promised us lunch and I was hungry enough that even future food sounded good to me. ------- Chapter 18 I could smell the beef cooking in the kitchen from where I was standing out by the barn. It took all of my willpower not to bolt for the kitchen door at a dead run. Instead of running, I put my arms around Tonya and Sonja and we strolled up to the front door. Tonya laughed and patted my belly when my stomach rumbled in anticipation. "Sonja, I think we are going to lose our man to my mother as soon as he sits down at the table," Tonya said. Sonja nodded glumly. "I know. How can we stay with him, knowing he'll cast us aside for the first woman who tosses a piece of dead cow his way?" Well, I did not cast either of them aside, but for about fifteen minutes, my entire attention was centered on the absolutely delicious beef stew Carol ladled out. Carol said that stew was an excellent compromise between those of us who ate meat and those who did not. She showed what she meant by only ladling vegetables out of the pot for Sonja. Carol said she had a dozen or so recipes for meals like this one that she would be happy to share. I gave Carol an enthusiastic hug in gratitude for the excellent meal. She stiffened in my arms at first, then sighed and snuggled close. Except for her much longer hair, holding Carol was the same as holding her daughter. Yes, the physical similarities were that close. I let go of Carol and stepped backwards when it became apparent that she was not going to do it. "She even feels like you in my arms, Tonya. I'm telling you, the pair of you could be twins." Tonya nodded and replied. "It's that way with most unaltered daughters. For some reason, unaltered females are almost clones of their mothers. Coleen has theorized that more of the weakened male DNA is shunted aside by the more robust female genes with each succeeding generation." I could see how it would be tough for the gelded men of this time to pass on any sort of legacy. People of the future were selectively breeding themselves into oblivion as far as I could tell. I had to admit that the altered women were all beautiful and well constructed, but they were not a bit more appealing to me than Tonya or Sarah Hunnicutt. I could never see myself happy in this civilization. ------- After lunch, I vetoed the idea of us immediately departing for the outlands. "We will move out at first light tomorrow morning. This afternoon, I want to check the equipment that was sent with us, and figure out how we will load our pack animals." Two of the metallic silver colored trunks were in the conveyance that brought us out to Carol's farm. I could guess that the trunks contained my weapons and some of the future men's camp equipment. I wanted to go through what was sent and distribute it between us and the pack animals. The women signed on to my plan, so we opened the trunks in the shade of the front porch. The first trunk had two sets of the light weight bedrolls, sleeping pads, packages of foodstuff and eating utensils. For all I know, it could have been the same gear the time traveling women had with them when they visited 1869. The second trunk had a set of the field camp equipment for me and the items I had brought from the past. My fiddle was in there, along with my pistol and my stage gun. Tonya's eyes went wide when I pulled the pistols out of the trunk to load them. "Instruments of death," she whispered in awe. I corrected her immediately. "That is not true, Tonya. I am the instrument of death, these weapons are just tools." I let Tonya heft the pistol, she knew the basics of how it operated, but she had never held one before. Tonya's experiences as a member of the security service, made her less afraid of the idea behind the pistol. I made a mental note of that fact. While we were in the outlands, I would try to teach her to shoot. The idea of Tonya toting the shotgun as she watched my back was more reassuring than her holding only a stunner. The outlanders demonstrated that they did not put the value on human life that the citizens did. You could hoot and holler about peace and brotherhood all you wanted, but without the resolve to fight for your beliefs, you were destined to end up in the service of someone who would. Sonja's reaction to my weapons was the same as it had been back in Wyoming. She refused to even look at them, let alone touch one. I had a thought then that something in the process of genetic alteration caused an aversion for lethal weapons. If it was programmed into the basic nature of men, why couldn't it also work on women? We sorted through the gear and stacked it into five piles. The two biggest piles were destined for the pack mules. Those piles included most of the camp site gear. The three smaller piles were items we would wear, carry on our person, or pack into our saddle bags. I had each of us carrying enough gear to survive in an emergency if we lost the pack animals. I spent part of the afternoon training my new 'command' on how to travel and react while in enemy territory. I showed them hand signals and maneuvering techniques I had learned when JC and I served with Colonel Mosby's Raiders in 1864. In return, the two women taught me how to use the equipment sent out by the Pleiad. I thought most of the items were almost luxurious, even though they held common uses. I especially liked the sleeping pad that would keep my big muley butt off the ground while I slept. The item I appreciated most, though, was the future's version of the common spy glass the women called binoculars. The ability to see objects magnified seven times with both eyes was outstanding. Tonya had maps of the area in which we would be operating that were even more astounding in their detail than the ones Sonja had of Wyoming when she visited there. Once she taught me the basics of reading the map and using the compass that came with it, I was much better disposed towards our trip. We sat down with the map and plotted out our first day's journey. Tonya had some precise knowledge of the area from when she had served on the Fringe, and the Pleiad had a fair idea of where Elizabeth Smith was located. It didn't come as much of a surprise to me to learn that Elizabeth had named the settlement she founded as 'New London'. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that one of the items in the trunks was my fiddle. It had made the trip in good shape. The instrument was traveling even better now, because someone had fitted it into a case made of the silver color metal. Taking the fiddle with us into the outlands was a luxury, but what the heck, we had the room, and the women did not mind. One thing we did not take was the second tent that the Pleiad provided. Sonja picked it up and frowned. Tonya took the tent out of her hands and tossed it aside. "That thing is superfluous, unless you are planning on sleeping in it by yourself," the bigger woman said. Sonja grinned and shook her head. "Not on your life," she said with a laugh. ------- We finished our repacking by six that evening and walked back into the house. The place smelled wonderful again, this time my nose discerned chicken and dumplings. As good as the food smelled, I forgot all about it as soon as I saw Carol Larson standing at the stove. She was wearing a snug-fitting calico print dress that showed off her splendid figure. Her long chestnut hair cascaded down her back in a wavy riot of red, brown and blonde high-lights. When she turned around to greet us, it was obvious she had rouged her cheeks and lips. Her smile was big and bright, and obviously meant for me. My eyes were locked on Carol's, and her smoldering look was quickly arousing me. Tonya broke the mood by noisily clearing her throat. "That's dirty pool, Mother," she carped good-naturedly. Carol had the grace to blush before replying. "Whatever are you talking about, My Dear? You know I like to look my best when we have guests." Tonya laughed and gave her mother a hug. "Of course you do," Tonya said unconvincingly. Supper was even better than lunch. After the meal, Carol joined us in her parlor to share the latest she knew about the outlanders' doings. I was not that surprised that Carol traded with the outlanders. It seemed only natural, given her location on the fringe. According to Sonja, trade with outlanders was common among fringe dwellers. The activity was also strictly legal and even somewhat controlled by the government. Outlanders were the source of much useful salvage. Carol told us that the charismatic "Queen Elizabeth" had consolidated four or five bands of outlanders into one town she had names 'New London'. She had also proclaimed all the area under her control 'New England'. The area of the United States that once bore those names had been vaporized early in the dark times. The results of Elizabeth's organizational skills were readily apparent in the quality of the materials the outlanders now offered Carol in trade. The outlanders were buying breeding stock from Carol in an effort to become self sufficient. Carol speculated that they had raided the experimental farm for the same reason. She had no idea why the outlanders had resorted to such violence. She said she was not worried that they might turn that violence towards her. "I know all the livestock breeders in the interior, so I am their go between for obtaining what they need that I don't have. The Pleiad allows me to keep trading, because I am one of their best sources of current information about the outlanders," she said. Shortly after ten that night, Tonya yawned and stood up. "I think it's time to turn in. Mother, can you give me a hand with the linen?" Carol looked at her daughter curiously, but nodded and stood up as well. It did not take some sort of genius to know that Tonya was filling her mother in on our sleeping arrangements. Just the thought of Tonya telling her mother about us was making me blush. Tonya led Sonja and me to the bedroom she still maintained in her mother's home. Of course the bed was one of those giant ones that everyone seemed to own. I was prepared for a good night's sleep after discussing our departure schedule with my traveling companions. I figured that the way Tonya spoke in front of her mother had been a tease designed to embarrass the older Larson woman. It was most definitely not, and sleep was not on the agenda either, for me or anyone else in a thousand yards of that bedroom. I swear that the two women made enough noise that night to scare off any outlander raiding party. I guess I should admit right now that I was a more than willing co-conspirator in what went on that night. The sight of Sonja absolutely ravishing her much larger friend assured that happening. All three of us were chipper and happy the next morning, despite sleeping so little. We had a nice breakfast that featured ham and eggs, then we saddled and packed up. By eight-thirty, we were on a well worn trail that led towards the east. Carol was riding with us, acting as our guide to the end of the fringes. The trail we followed led due east through areas cleared for ranching and farming. We rode for a couple of miles before the terrain became rougher, and we started up hill. As we moved up in elevation, pastures gave way to neatly planted stands of spruce, pine and fir trees. I asked Carol about the trees. "This is land reclaimed by the Civilian Conservation Corp about fifty years ago. Every citizen between the ages of sixteen and twenty one serves six months in the CCC. The Pleiad resurrected the CCC idea from a similarly named organization from the early twentieth century. The CCC has reclaimed thousands of acres of fallow land, while leaving large tracts undisturbed as wild life habitat," she said proudly. Sonja added to Carol's explanation. "Reclamation is important to us, because for every square mile cleared and put to use, the Pleiad adds an additional birth permit. Population control is a major issue, and has been for nearly a century. Keeping the birth rate low is an unpleasant fact of life because of our limited resources and long life spans." I nodded my understanding, but did not comment on what they said. Needing a permit to have a child just added to my growing list of reasons why I did not like the future. As far as clearing and reclaiming land went, why did they have to conscript people into doing that? Why not just open the land up to settlement? To me, the lack of pioneering spirit was another indictment against altering men the way they had. I put those thoughts out of my mind and took out my map to orient myself. Paradise Valley encompassed more than a thousand square miles. It was a low mountain valley, oriented northwest to southeast, twenty miles wide and fifty miles long. The mountains that formed the western side of the valley were higher than the eastern peaks, and snow covered for much of the year. Snow melt, a receding glacier and natural springs created the headwaters for the Paradise River. The river flowed down the western side of the valley and spilled out of the valley into the high plains. We were moving up the eastern wall of the valley, about halfway down its length. We were headed for a small pass between two saddleback ridges; a climb of about two thousand feet of elevation. The slope was becoming progressively steeper, but the trail was passable and the animals were not laboring. We did not see any wildlife, other than an occasional squirrel, but there were signs aplenty of deer, wolf, mountain lion and even bears. I pointed out some mountain lion tracks to Carol and she smiled and nodded. "Many animals native to this area that were almost extinct in the twenty-second century have repopulated nicely. Because we have left them their natural habitat, they seldom venture into populated areas." We dismounted and took a break at the fifteen hundred foot mark. When we were ready to move out again, Carol hugged and kissed us all and headed back to her ranch. My companions and I remained dismounted, and led our mounts up the steeper trail. It took a hard forty-five minute march to reach the summit of the pass. As we climbed, the trees gave way to scrub oak and stunted cedars. I was winded by the time we hit the summit, and I was chagrinned that Tonya and Sonja were not. The view for the crest of the mountain pass was spectacular in every direction. Sonya and I stood there gawking as Tonya smiled at our obvious awe. "I've seen this view dozens of times, and it still raises goose bumps," Tonya said softly. I think what made the views so spectacular was the incredible contrast between the neatly cultivated and settled valley, with its mottled green checker board look, and the brown, treeless, undeveloped high plains that stretched to the east. The trail was rougher coming down the eastern side of the mountain, but the slope was gentler, so we were able to ride. At the base of the mountain, the trail spilled out on to a well defined road that ran north-south. We turned and followed the road south. We openly traveled on the road, because we were attempting to blend in as outlanders. We were dressed in jeans, nondescript shirts, boots and hats. Except for the shirt, everything I wore was my own. Imagine that, I had traveled over six hundred years into the future, yet I was still on the back of a mule, dressed the same and carrying my same weapons. It was almost as if time had stood still for seven centuries. Our disguises went untested for the first day, as we passed nary another soul traveling in either direction. We stopped and made camp in a grassy little glade by a small spring-fed pond. It was only four in the afternoon, but the campsite was ideal and my companions were saddle weary. We unloaded the pack mules, then Sonja set up our bed rolls and mattress pads, while Tonya and I tended our stock. We were not erecting the tent; the weather was too nice for that. Sonja picked an excellent spot for our sleeping gear. It was underneath a cottonwood tree, about thirty feet from the pond. Once the stock was watered, hobbled and grazing, both women stripped off their clothes and jumped into the pond. They tried to entice me in with them, but as tempting as the offer sounded, I declined so I could keep an eye out. We were not going to be inhospitable if we received visitors, but I was not going to be caught unawares. While they were washing away the trail dust, I walked around the pond. The pond was flush up against a small escarpment of exposed rock about fifty feet high. The spring that fed the pond was fifteen feet up the cliff face. The water gurgled down the rocks at a rate of a few gallons per minute. A couple of feet above the spring was a wide ledge about fifteen feet across. A few gnarled, ten-feet-tall junipers grew out of cracks in the ledge. If I could climb up to the ledge, I would have a nice vantage point with a commanding view, so I slung my shotgun across my back and gave it a try. Climbing the cliff proved to be amazingly easy, because there were hand and foot holds right where I needed them. It was obvious that someone long ago had painstakingly carved the niches into the stone. I received a second surprise when I walked onto the ledge, because tucked behind the dwarf junipers was an opening in the rocks about five and a half feet tall and two feet wide. After carefully studying the ground around the cave entrance for animal signs, I pulled out my pistol, slowly poked my head into the cave ... and discovered nothing. The interior of the cave was about twelve feet square and was empty save for a few bones scattered around the floor. I gave a snort of amusement at my high melodrama. I pulled my head out of the cave just in time to hear a man chuckle, then speak in a deep booming voice. "Well, well, well, what have we here?" I cautiously pushed aside a bough of the juniper that was in front of my face, and looked down at the pond and glade. Two riders were dismounting, both of them very stocky. One carried a rifle type weapon of a design I had never seen before, but the other, to my jaw dropped amazement, held a bow in his hand with an arrow already nocked. The man holding the rifle-looking thing had a threadbare beard and stringy hair. The man with the bow was beardless, but had the same wispy, oily mop of hair. Although stark naked, both of my traveling companions were out of the pond and standing by their clothes. Cool and calm as you please, Tonya answered the man. "We are travelers seeking to join with Queen Elizabeth," she said. The bearded man gave another rumbling chuckle. "A worthy cause for sure, unfortunately though, your plans just changed. There is a different place waiting for you, and a better purpose for that big strong body. Hell, we'll even find a place for your scrawny friend and fatten her up," he said. Before Tonya could answer, I cut into the conversation. I was still screened from their view by the Juniper tree, and I was using a well placed limb as a rest for my pistol barrel. It was at least thirty yards down to where the men stood, that was the outside effective limit of my pistol. "Drop your weapons," I yelled, "or prepare to die." The bearded man chose the second option. Quick as a flash, he snapped his weapon in my direction and pulled the trigger. The weapon did not make a sound, but a hole gaped open in the foliage to my left and a big gout of rock blasted out of the escarpment behind me. Just as I pulled the trigger of my Colt, my backside was peppered with shards of jagged rock. My back stung like Hades, but I recocked my pistol and realigned my sights. The big man staggered back a step and looked at his companion in confusion, as a dark crimson stain spread across the front of his tan chambray shirt. Before I could fire another round, Tonya blasted both of the men with her big stunner and they dropped like rocks. I scrambled off the ledge and hurried around to where Tonya and Sonja stood rooted in shock. "Are you two okay? I am so sorry I was distracted and let those two surprise us." The women said they were fine, but they kept cautiously looking at the pair on the ground. I noticed that Tonya still had her stunner pointed at them. "Who the hell are they anyway? I thought you said men had all been genetically altered." Sonja trembled slightly and took a shuddering breath. "I've never seen anything like them, they are abominations. There eyes were even more hate filled than the Indians who attacked us in your time," she squeaked. Tonya was more controlled, but she nodded emphatically. I watched over the two unconscious men while the women hurriedly dressed, then Tonya watched them while I tended to the man I wounded. I tore open his shirt and was amazed at the sheer mass of muscles I uncovered. He was the most powerfully built man I had ever seen. My bullet was lodged somewhere in those thickly corded muscles on the right side of his chest. As I was tearing his shirt into bandages, Sonja was checking his partner. Neither woman wanted anything to do with being near the man I shot. "I think this is a woman!" Sonja suddenly yipped. It was a woman alright, at least down where it counts the most. The rest of her was as curiously over-muscled as her companion, plus she had a nicer, fuller mustache than I had ever been able to grow. The mysterious man and woman took on a secondary importance when Sonja noticed blood on my back. I insisted that we truss up our new prisoners before they treated my scratches. I asked about the weapon that threw the shards of rock against my back as they fussed over me. "What is that thing he shot at me with? It did not make a sound when he fired it, but it hit the rock face like a cannon shell," I said. Tonya nodded and patted her holstered stunner. "It is a particle beam weapon from the mid twenty-first century, and works on the same principle as our stunners. The charged particle rifle fires a thread thin stream of hydrogen atoms at near the speed of light. Our stunners fire a wide slower moving stream of nitrogen atoms. The particle beam rifle had limited range, because the beam was too difficult to focus past about a hundred meters and because an inexpensive counter measure was developed as soon as they were fielded. There are lots of these around, but all of them are inert because of the age of the power supplies in them. The Pleiad is going to be interested in how our ugly friends here overcame that problem." I finally convinced the women I was fine so they would leave me alone for a minute. I really was not injured that badly, anyway. Of more immediate concern to me were our prisoners. We needed to get the one I shot some medical attention pronto. Plus, I just was not comfortable with trying to sleep with them awake, no matter how tightly we trussed them up. Finally, we just hog-tied both the wounded man and the strange woman and divvied up guard duty throughout the night. When the woman woke up, we had to gag her to shut the string of invectives flying out of her mouth. The man stayed unconscious. We were up and moving at first light the next morning, our prisoners slung across the backs of our pack mules. The additional weight of our stocky prisoners meant that most of our gear was on my mule, and I was hoofing it. Me having to walk meant that it was dusk when we arrived in New London. I was actually impressed with the town, it was clean, well laid out and surprisingly normal looking. Our arrival was the occasion of some excitement. We were only a few blocks into town, before a boxy looking self-powered carriage slid to a stop in front of us. A man hopped out of the vehicle and threw up his hand to halt us. I noted with some amusement that he wore a five-pointed star pinned to his shirt pocket, and wore a stunner in a flapped holster similar to Tonya's. "What's going on here citizens?" He asked. I gave him the story the women and I had worked out. "These two miscreants attacked us yesterday, Sheriff. They tried to kill me and abduct my women. One of the attackers was seriously injured when we resisted. We were headed here to request an audience with the Queen, so we brought them along, hoping there was some authority to turn them over to." The lawman walked over for a closer look at our prisoners. He lifted the woman's chin up and looked at her face for a few seconds before snatching his hand away in revulsion. "What are these creatures?" Sonja asked. The sheriff looked disgusted and spit on the ground. "They call themselves Juicers," he snarled. "Members of a cult that ingest huge doses of testosterone and other steroids, in an effort to make them more like our ancestors." Our original plan had been to infiltrate into Elizabeth's followers and find an opportunity to abscond with her. We figured it would take some time to work ourselves into the outlander's good graces. Instead, because we captured some of the 'Juicers', we had instant credibility. The Sheriff pulled out a vid-phone, walked a few feet from us and called someone. The lawman talked for a few minutes, closed the phone and came back over to us. "Help me put these things in my paddy-wagon and I'll take them off your hands. They match the description of the suspects in a couple of robberies and assaults. And Liz wants to see you right away, so wait here and someone will be by for you." And just like that, we were in... ------- Chapter 19 The sheriff and I lugged the man and woman to his carriage and heaved them into the back. The sheriff was none to gentle with the wounded fellow, and heedless of the woman's gender, flinging them as if they were sacks of grain. The sheriff took a closer look at the front of the shirt of the fellow I shot, then he rolled his eyes in my direction. "You and I need to have a little talk tomorrow, so don't leave town." I gave him a nod and a respectful "yes sir." The women and I had hidden most of our weapons, as well as the ones we had confiscated, in our packed bedrolls before we rode into town. We wanted as few questions about our cover story as possible. The only weapon we had accessible was a small stunner Tonya had concealed at the small of her back. I had my pistols in my saddle bags that were draped over my shoulder, but it would have taken some effort to retrieve them. Thankfully, the sheriff did not seem overly concerned about checking us for weapons. We only had a five or six minute wait before a young woman pulled up riding one of those pedal-less bicycles. The woman fit the mold of the typical female of the future; she was tall, slim, healthy and attractive. The only surprise value she held for me was the rich chocolate color of her skin. I had seen people of color around Paradise Valley, but most of them were lighter complexioned than this woman. The woman dismounted her conveyance, flipped down an arm to keep it upright, and walked over to me. She gave me a dazzling smile and stuck out her hand. "Jeremiah Brock, I presume," she said as she gave my hand a firm shake. "I'm Deputy Minister Devers, but please call me Lucy." I raised my eyebrows at her knowing my name, but it really did not shock me that much. From my first glimpse of New London, I could already see that these outlanders were not backwoods yokels. Lucy dropped my hand and turned to my companions. "I won a pile of credits, betting it was you two that the Pleiad sent. I swear Sonja, those councilors couldn't organize a picnic unless you were involved. I figured they'd send you also, Lawson, nothing but the best to keep an eye on their caveman." Sonja was looking at Devers in shock. "Councilor Bearclaw said you transferred up to the north power generating plant," Sonja said. Lucy laughed and gave Sonja a hug. "The council doesn't like to acknowledge defections, so they invent stories to explain people disappearing. You are going to see many familiar faces here. Now mount up and follow me, Liz is quite anxious to meet Mister Brock." So much for sneaking in, eh? Lucy led us through the neatly laid out streets until we reached the town square. We halted in front of a three story mansion done in the southern plantation style. The house with its columned portico would not have been out of place in Atlanta before the war. At the back of the house were a nice sized stable and a two acre paddock. Lucy led us to the barn and we quickly squared our mounts away. I was in a quandary about the weapons we had rolled up in our bedrolls. I was thinking of trying to hide them somehow, then gave up on the idea. Finally, I just asked Lucy. "Lucy, I have some weapons in my gear that I brought from my time, and I have a more modern weapon I took from the man you called a Juicer. Do you have a place where I can secure them?" Lucy did not seem surprised that I was armed. She shrugged and told me to bring them in with me, unloaded and rendered safe. I took out my pistols, broke open the action and removed the cylinders, and then I unloaded the stage gun. Tonya took out the beam rifle and removed a part from it. Lucy took the strange looking gun and looked it over. "This is the third one of these that we've seen in the last six months. We had to start equipping our patrols with diffusion vests because of them. We need to find where they are coming from and how the juicers are reactivating them." As soon as we walked onto the back porch, my world lurched again, just as it had in the cavern back in Wyoming. Only this time it wasn't a time machine that caused my disorientation. Instead, it was a petite, stunningly beautiful blonde woman with big royal blue eyes, who was standing in the doorway. She was wearing a simple long gingham dress buttoned high at the collar. Her figure was trim and compact. Her hair was cut in a short bob that framed her face. I stopped short, doffed my hat and bowed at the waist. "Your Majesty," was all I could think of to say. I guess it was enough though, because she gave me a dazzling smile and held out her tiny hand. "Gallant as well as brave, you do not disappoint me, Mister Brock," she said. Even her voice was perfect, I was smitten. As soon as I took her dainty hand in my big rough paw, I think she felt the same way, because her eyelashes fluttered and her nostrils flared. She reluctantly dropped my hand and stepped back away from me. "So that part is true also. Miss Ferrens chose well. Are you hungry Mister Brock? We held supper for you in case you were." My eyes lit up at that statement, because truth be known, I was hungry enough to gnaw on my boot. "I could eat a bite or two if it was not too much trouble, Your Highness." Tonya snorted and Sonja snickered. "He'll eat anything that doesn't eat him first," Sonja said. I tried to look at least a little bit offended, but the truth was the truth. The Queen of New England gave me another of those amazing smiles. "Why don't you call me Liz, and I'll call you Jeremiah. We don't stand on ceremony here. And it will be a pleasure to dine with a man with a robust appetite. All the men I'm accustomed to eat like Sparrows." We dropped the weapons on a table by the back door, then Liz and Lucy led us to a small and intimate dining room that reminded me a lot of the ones at Camille's place in Boulder. The five of us filled all the chairs except one. Liz sat at the head of the table and sat me to her right. Lucy sat to my right, while Tonya and Sonja sat across from me. As we were getting situated, I noticed that Lucy kept looking at me. Finally, I had to ask. "What is the matter Lucy? Have I drooled on my shirt or something?" Lucy's dusky skin actually tinged deep red, and she quickly looked away from me. "I was just trying to gauge your reaction to being so close to a person of my color. I know you came from the south during the slave days." I stared at her for a second and shrugged. "That is all?" I asked. "For your information, my family was too poor and proud to own slaves. Matter of fact, I never even met a slave. I met some freed men and I did work with some Buffalo Soldiers once in Colorado. Oh, and I know a couple of Negro muleskinners. I met some good folks of color; they were Negro, Red Indians, Mexicans and Chinese; and I met some bad ones too. My Mama taught me it is that way with all of the Lord's children, so I judge them one at a time." She looked at me strangely for a few heartbeats, and then stuck her hand out for me to shake. "I hope you consider me one of the good people," she said with a smile. I lifted her hand to my lips and gave her a look. "I don't know about that yet, but you sure are a beautiful woman." Yes, I was undoubtedly the suavest, most debonair, silver tongued muleskinner in 2525. My little declaration broke the ice and made everyone laugh. Before another conversation could start, an older woman started bringing in the food. She was the first person I met here that appeared over forty. I only noted her relative age peripherally though, because most of my attention was on the platter of steaks she was toting. It seemed as if it had been a month of Sundays since I last had a steak. The woman sat the platter of steaks on the table and retreated back through the door she'd come through. Lucy jumped up and went with her. It took Lucy and the woman two more trips to bring out the rest of our meal. When the last platter and bowl was on the table, Lucy returned to her seat and the older woman took the empty chair at the foot of the table. The meal was much like Sunday dinner at my family's home back in Cheyenne. The most noticeable difference was the food included for the two altered people (Lucy and Sonja). I stood up until the ladies were seated. Liz shot Lucy a grin when I did that. "See Lucy, manners are not just some sort of archaic court protocol. They are a sign of respect that people used to show one another. And speaking of manners, I seem to have forgotten mine tonight. Everyone, this is Mary, my mother and the chef that prepared this excellent meal." Liz went on to introduce her mother to each of us, then we dug into the food. I was putting a serious whooping on the big piece of beef that Mary slapped onto my plate and Tonya stayed with me, bite for bite. That woman could pack away the grub! Conversation swirled around the table as Sonja caught Liz and Lucy up on mutual friends and favorite places. Sonja even told Liz about me playing my fiddle at Pecos Pete's. In between medium rare bites of steak, I even agreed to play a couple of numbers for them later. When the meal was finished, Liz wanted to talk to me privately, so Lucy and my women headed back to the barn to fetch our bags and lock up our weapons. I had to chuckle when the woman who the Pleiad said suffered from delusions of grandeur started clearing the table while we talked. It was even funnier when we both ended up in the kitchen, busting suds and scrubbing pans. As we worked, she confirmed much of what I suspected about this time period. "Jeremiah, I am not some megalomaniac looking to dominate the world as Bearclaw and the Pleiad want you to believe. In fact, if this was not the only way I could think of to insure a future for mankind, I'd still be perfectly happy teaching history at the University. However, the fact is that if we don't make some serious changes, we are headed for extinction in a century or two. "Regardless of what you've been told, going back in time to keep the dark times from happening isn't going to work. It won't work because time and history are not straight lines that you can alter the direction of. Instead, they are more like a funnel into which events are poured and out the tip squeezes the present. "The minute we are living right now is the sum result of everything that has happened on the Earth for the last five billion years. Anything that we could change as a result of going back in time has already been accounted for. For instance, the Hawkingium Sonja and her team brought back from your time is a good example of that concept. Everyone was surprised that you all brought back so much of it, because in our history, only a small amount had been found at the site. That's because the scientist who discovered the site in the 1960s only found what Sonja and her team left behind. Finally, traveling back in time would not stop the string of natural disasters that befell the Earth. Earthquakes, exploding volcanoes, drought, floods, cyclones and you name it, killed off two-thirds of the Earth's population. Volcanic ash and radio active dust clouds produced a two hundred year ice age that we still haven't recovered from. The polar ice cap has receded a couple of hundred miles, but still covers most of what was once Canada and northern Europe. With all that water locked in the ice cap, most of the Earth is still facing a severe drought. Only a narrow temperate zone consisting of the middle third of the Northern Hemisphere is inhabitable. "I think the time program could be a greater benefit to us if we used it to change the future instead of trying to mess with the past. Bringing the Hawkingium forward proves that point. As a matter of fact, so does you being here. "The time project is only a symptom of the larger problem, though. The big problem is the fragmentation of our social order, brought about by the males of the species opting out of our society. In only three generations, men removed themselves from being members of society, to being disinterested observers. By the forth generation, men had become a self-flagellating, monkish clique of know it alls, unconcerned about the future, and fixated on the past. "At first, Homo Superior, as they so modestly call themselves, were exactly as advertised. For the first fifty years, we made amazing progress. The population increased by fifty percent and life expectancy rose above a hundred years of age. Cellular rejuvenation was perfected and the aging process was slowed by sixty percent. Then, about ninety years ago, the population stopped growing and for the last seventy-five years it has actually declined. "I'm going to try to fix all that and secure a future on this planet for our race, Jeremiah. We might never rival the splendor of the golden era, but we will survive and flourish. We'll repopulate the Earth and be better stewards of it. We will do as people have done down through history, we'll make a better world for our children and our children's children." When she finally wound down, she gave me a lopsided, embarrassed grin. "Sorry, I am a little passionate about what I believe in," she said unnecessarily. "I told you all that because there is a big role for you to play here, if you are up to it." I shrugged noncommittally. Liz had just neatly summed up all my misgivings about the future in one five minute lecture. I really didn't know what part I could play that would really help, and besides, Liz seemed as if she had a handle on things already. I acknowledged what she said without answering her and changed the subject. "You seem to know a smart amount about what happens in Paradise Valley," I said. "There are many women and more than a few men in the valley who share my beliefs. We are also plugged into the citizens' computer network. I have as many people working within the Valley as I have here in new London, including a couple on the council." I was surprised she would reveal information like that. She knew I was here to arrest her at the council's request, yet she was not bothered by that fact in the least. Since she was in a sharing mood, I asked her another question. "The council led me to believe that you outlanders were a bunch of exiles and criminals. How many of you are there anyway?" Liz laughed and replied, "I suppose in their eyes we are, although I think only about six people have been exiled in the last twenty-five years. Most of the people here left the valley or one of the other city/states because they wanted something better than trying to relive the past. Their city councils try hard to marginalize and ignore us, which suits our purposes fine for the time being. "When I joined the exodus, there were already three towns the size of New London and several smaller settlements. I simply helped organize them into one government. We have a population of close to twenty thousand, including over three thousand children. We control all the land between Paradise Valley and the City/State of Casadega, ninety miles to our east, and we expand that area almost daily. Right this minute, we have survey and exploration parties scouting in every direction." I smiled at that statement because it fit my wanderlust. We were quiet, both lost in our thoughts as we finished cleaning up the kitchen. Before we rejoined my women and Lucy, Liz grabbed my hand and looked me in the eye. "I shared a lot of information with you, Jeremiah, which I'd like to stay between the two of us. You can go anywhere you want here and ask all the questions you wish; we have absolutely nothing to hide from you. Your lady friends, especially Sonja, are a different story. I'd like to spend more time with you, but it will be catch as catch can around my other duties. Lucy will stay with you and act as your guide." We parted ways with Liz giving me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. She said she had a few things to attend, and that she would see me on the morrow. She pointed me in the direction of the stairs and said my suite was on the second floor to the left of the stairway. Liz had sure given me some things to chew over. I wandered upstairs and found our room on the first try. The suite we were in was as nice as Sonja's apartment in Paradise Valley. We had a sitting room with a fire place and a large bedroom with one of the ubiquitous giant beds in it. Sonja and Tonya were sitting on the davenport talking, when I slipped in the door. They jumped up and hugged me, then dragged me down onto the sofa. Both women were astounded by what they had seen. "This place and these people are not in the least what I expected to find out here!" It is amazing what Liz has accomplished in only seven years. She is a much greater threat than the Pleiad ever imagined." Sonja exclaimed. Tonya shook her head in disagreement. "How is she a threat to us? All she has done is take what we don't want anyway. It is obvious that those 'Juicer' creatures are the ones that attacked the farm, so she is even innocent of what we came to arrest her for," Tonya said. Sonja was not ready to concede that point. "The Juicers may be working for her, or they could even be her creations. As far as being no threat to us, look around you. These people do not share our values or concerns. What if they turn their attention towards capturing what we have?" Sonja argued. They both turned to me then and Tonya asked what I thought. I chose my words carefully. "I think that I need to find out more of what's going on here before I decide anything. Lucy is going to show us around tomorrow, so I will have an opportunity to speak with some regular folks. Plus, I have to meet with the Sheriff tomorrow. Maybe I can find out if there is some connection with the Juicers if we talk lawman to lawman." "It's all a facade," Sonja sniffed haughtily, "she even has the cheek to establish her own laws and hire someone to enforce them." Sonja was all for leaving first thing the following morning so she could report to the Pleiad, but Tonya and I nixed leaving for at least a couple of days. "Think about it Sonja, the longer we stay, the more information you can gather," I said reasonably. It was my hope that Sonja would view Liz and her folks in a better light if she was exposed to them for a few days. In the end, she reluctantly conceded me the point. Looking back on that conversation, I should have known that she was just humoring me, but I was too intent on spending more time here to notice. So, I bear much of the responsibility for what happened to her and Tonya. After our discussion, we all took showers and tumbled into bed. Even though the night was young, we were too tired from the excitement of the last two days for anything except sleep. I woke up the next morning ready to see more of New London and eagerly looking forward to seeing Liz again. The women slept through me doing my duties in the bathroom and dressing, so I slipped out of the room without awakening them. The smell of coffee drew me to the kitchen like a magnet. Mary Smith, Liz's mother, was the only person besides me stirring. She gave me a sweet, tentative smile and pulled me a ceramic coffee mug down from a cabinet next to the sink. I returned her smile and poured me a cup of the steaming brew. I added a dollop of cream from a small clear jug, blew across the rim of the mug and took a sip. Thankfully the coffee was not the thick strong brew of the Pleiad; rather it reminded me of very good trail coffee. "Good coffee, thank you," I told her. "You are most welcome Mister Brock," she replied. Since I had her talking, I asked the question that had been on my mind since I met her. "Missus Smith, I hope I am not being indelicate asking this, but why are you the only person I have met here that is not young looking?" She looked startled by the question then chuckled. "I guess your visit in Paradise Valley did not include a trip to a retirement center. There are more of me around, but most of them are living out their last years in one of the centers. I stopped responding to the rejuvenation matrix about six years ago. Instead of accepting retirement, I walked out of the Valley and started working here for my daughter." I asked about the rejuvenation process, because I remember Coleen referring to it. "Every citizen receives a complete physical exam during their twenty-second year. The exam measures and records a snapshot of you at the peak of your health and development. At the same exam, spinal column stem cells are harvested, cloned and stored. Every two years after that, a new physical 'snapshot' is taken and compared to the previous one. The cloned stem cells are sequenced and administered to erase seventy-five to eighty percent of the aging process. "The rejuvinatrix works differently with different groups. For those of us not altered, the process works about thirty times at the rate of seventy-five percent. I for instance, was chronologically eighty-five, but physiologically only forty. I received the treatments with a fifty percent rate from the age of forty, until I hit menopause at the physical age of forty-five. That was six years ago when I was chronologically ninety-five. After menopause, the rejuvenation process stops working, so you begin to age normally. "Altered women usually hit menopause at the chronological age of one hundred and fifteen or so. Altered males fare the best, because the treatments continue to work until they are unable to produce semen. That usually doesn't happen until they are around sixty years old physically and between one hundred twenty and one hundred forty in actual calendar years." It took a minute or so for what Mary said to sink in. I had my suspicions about the apparent youth of everyone anyway, but the confirmation from Mary was still hard to grasp. The future men had discovered the fountain of youth. At the same time, they were making this extended life not worth living. I asked Mary if the outlanders had access to the rejuvenation process. She replied that they did, although about a quarter of the population did not use it. Liz came down and joined us about then, and Lucy showed up a minute later. Liz gave me a kiss again this morning, although this time it was on the lips. It was a very nice kiss and I liked it a lot. Lucy kissed me too, but it was more of a sisterly peck. The three of us sat at the small kitchen table while Mary bustled about preparing breakfast. Liz explained what she had in mind for me for the next day or so. "Jeremiah, I want you to look around and ask questions today. The only reason Lucy is going is to act as your guide and to gain you entry into anything you want to explore. I have a couple of reasons for doing this. The primary reason is to show you that we are a progressive and vital society. The second reason is that you might run across something that, based on your experience, could be done a better way." I was going to take Liz at her word and kick over a few rocks to see what scurried from beneath them. I was especially going to explore if there was a link between the New Englanders and the Juicers. Tonya and Sonja wandered down stairs just in time for breakfast. Tonya was ready to see the sights with me, but Sonja pleaded that she wanted to relax for the morning and join us after lunch. She said we could fill her in on what she missed while we were out that afternoon. Sonja appeared to be down in the mouth, so we agreed to her plan. That was my second mistake. Lucy was proud as hell showing off what they had all accomplished, and I couldn't fault her for it a bit. It was as refreshing as a spring shower, watching the multigenerational outlanders just go about their daily business. We visited shops, small factories and repair emporiums that all dealt with the pre-catastrophe salvage. From building materials to complicated machinery to shiny baubles and gewgaws, the industrious outlanders didn't waste a thing. "We are actively mining seven huge sites right now," Lucy told me. "Two of those sites are formerly large cities that were wiped out by natural and manmade disasters. One of the other sites was a military research facility depopulated by a hydrogen bomb. We recover technology from the sites as well as artifacts and materials. The hydrogen fuel cells that power our vehicles were a result of finding similar units at the military complex and duplicating them. Unlike the valley dwellers, we are building a manufacturing base to provide materials needed for our expansion." We headed back to Liz's place at noon. We were going to grab lunch and Sonja, then head back out to see the sheriff. That would have been a most excellent plan, had Sonja been waiting on us. Unfortunately, she was not. Mary told us that Sonja had left about half and hour after we did, ostensibly to catch up with us. I dashed out to the barn to see if any of our mounts were missing while Tonya went up to check our room. When I returned with the bad news that both horses were missing, Tonya reported that Sonja's pack, some of the trail rations and the small stunner were also absent. "She's headed back to the valley to warn the Pleiad about what she suspects is going on here," Tonya said. I nodded in agreement. I figured that part out all by myself. What I could not figure out was why Sonja had so little trust in what I had said about taking her home in a couple of days. As soon as I gave it a few minutes more thought, I realized that Sonja had left knowing full well that I would ride out after her. She knew that I would never allow her out in the badlands without me there to protect her. I sighed and turned towards Tonya and Lucy. "Looks like lunch will have to wait. We need to find the sheriff right now and enlist his help. I am going to blister her butt when I get my hands on her," I vowed. ------- Chapter 20 Lucy convinced the sheriff to help look for Sonja. It took some browbeating, but the man finally caved in when Lucy invoked her position as Queen Elizabeth's aide. The sheriff's reluctance was based on the fact that he thought chasing after a stupid Valley Dweller was a waste of time. "Let her go back to where she belongs, and good riddance to her," the lawman grunted. When Lucy had the sheriff sorted out, we decided to spit up. Lucy and I would ride together, while Tonya and the sheriff teamed up. They would ride in a horseless contraption the sheriff called an 'any terrain vehicle'. I watched Lucy as she saddled one of the mules, she seemed competent and experienced. I guessed I was staring at her a little too long, because she put her fists on her hips and turned to face me. "I knew this was how it was going to be," she said crossly. I looked at her, a confused frown on my face. "Pardon me?" I asked. "Yesterday, I met a man from the slavery days, and today, he has me saddling a mule to take me away from home. Where will I be working Master, the house or the fields?" I was thunderstruck for a few seconds, until I saw the corner of her mouth twitch, and suddenly realized she was shining me on. "Neither," I said, trying to sound lecherous. "I keep healthy, fine looking wenches like you for my personal enjoyment." Lucy broke out laughing at my reply. When she finally stopped giggling, she returned to cinching up her saddle. She was determined to keep me off balance with her remarks. "Maybe we can pretend that's the case tonight," she said seductively. I enjoyed the flirtatious banter with Lucy, as it distracted me from worrying so much about Sonja. We made short work of preparing our mounts and preparing for our trip. I insisted we take at least three days worth of food, even though it was only a day and a half trip if we went all the way back to the university in the valley. When we were ready to mount up, I took my pistol out of my saddlebag, inserted a loaded cylinder and strapped on my holster. I loaded my stage gun with double-aught buck and slung it diagonally across my back. Lucy watched me with big eyes as I assembled my weapons. "You are so nonchalant and casual while handling things designed for killing. Are you the same way when it comes to using them?" she asked. I shrugged. Lucy did not seem overawed or frightened by my guns, she just seemed curious. "I'm never blasé when it comes to gun fighting, but I don't hesitate to shoot if it becomes necessary. I would rather be the one lamenting having shot someone, than the one planted on Boot Hill." Lucy digested that for a second then shocked the hell out of me when she replied. "I can understand that. Maybe you can teach me to shoot one day." "No problem," I said, "matter of fact, once we find willful Miss Sonja, we'll fill the scatter gun with rock salt and use her hind end for a target." Lucy was an excellent horsewoman, who rode western style. She was also a boon companion, with a wicked sense of humor and a delightful flirtatious way about her. I liked the hell out of her. We rode out of town on the same road I'd arrived on just yesterday. I was not at all happy with Sonja for putting us through this ordeal. I was at a loss whenever I tried to apply logic in my dealings with the Valley Dwellers. I shared my frustrations with Lucy. She had some insight that made a heck of a lot of sense. "Liz says that most of the valley people are victims of their own success, in that the genetic modifications have robbed a significant percentage of the population of drive and initiative. They don't think about how to make tomorrow better, instead they dwell on how much better things were yesterday. With each new generation, the malaise increases. According to Liz, they are going to fade away into oblivion, still yearning to manipulate what is unchangeable. "The mindset among most altered people is why Liz dropped out of their society and started this one. The outlanders already had small towns set up on the same principle as the city states, so Liz's challenge has been to meld towns, villages and clans toward a common purpose. As you can see, she has done an extraordinary job of that. Liz is a visionary and an extraordinary leader." The more I learned about these outlanders, the more I agreed with them. That was very troubling to me, because I considered myself as loyal as an old dog, and I owed some allegiance to the Pleiad, even if I thought they were headed for ruination. I guess that was something I needed to work on when I returned to the valley. One thing is for certain, Sonja's little ploy was not going to provoke me to return a minute sooner than I wanted. If necessary, I would deliver her as far as the Larson's ranch, but I was coming back. Once we cleared the cultivated fields in close to the town, Lucy took a side trail that she said was rougher, but shorter than the main road. We had been traveling about two hours, and were a good ten miles from New London, when a device on Lucy's belt started chirping. She snatched it off her belt and held it to her mouth. "State your emergency, Sheriff Greer," she said into the device. The thing in her hand continued to emit an occasional chirp, but despite repeated attempts to get the sheriff to answer, no voice came out of it. Lucy frowned and held the thing in front of her, parallel to the ground. She swung it back and forth in an arc from north-east to south-east. On the second sweep, she stopped with the instrument pointing towards the east-north-east. She looked at me somberly and explained her actions. "These devices are not as sophisticated as the Valley Dwellers' vid-phones, but they have an emergency paging feature with a homing beacon function. Sheriff Greer activated his emergency alert, but he isn't answering his radio. According to his beacon, he is about five miles from here in that direction," she said, pointing north-eastish. My heart flopped in my chest, because Tonya was with the sheriff. "Try calling Tonya on that thing," I ordered. Lucy shook her head negatively. "Can't," she said, "the units are not compatible." That was news not to my liking. I aimed my mule in the direction she pointed and nudged him forward. "Nothing to do but go find them then. Lead on, we can be there in forty minutes if we hurry," I said, my voice much calmer than I felt. The outlands of California were much different than the bad lands of Colorado and Wyoming, because there was much more water here. Where much of the high plains of where I was from were semi arid, the plains here were green and teeming with wild life. Part of the area was even forested with small stands of redwoods and lodge pole pines. To take my mind off Tonya, I asked Lucy about it. "Why do the people in the valley call these the outlands? This area seems perfect for farming and settlement." "It's getting there," Lucy said. "Looking around now, you wouldn't believe that a hundred years ago, this was all barren tundra. It is also still slightly contaminated with the fallout from the Bison River Nuclear Power Plant meltdown. If we get a better handle on what the weather will be like, we might start farming here in a few years. Right now, run off from glaciers and mountain snow melt keep the springs and creeks flowing all year. But if the temperature rises another degree or two, the glaciers will be gone and snow will stay on the mountains for less of the year. If we don't start receiving more rain, this area will revert to high desert for most of the year." We picked our way down a big game trail through one of the small forests, and exited the woods a hundred yards from the main north-south road. I stopped her when she started to ride out to the road. "Check where they are before we expose ourselves," I said softly. Lucy did another check with her multipurpose little device and indicated toward the north. "We are within four hundred meters of the Sheriff, Jeremiah. What do you want to do?" she asked in the same tone of voice. "Let's dismount and work our way north on foot. We'll stay in the wood line until we spot them or the road curves away from us," I replied. Leading the surprisingly light-footed mules, we skirted the edge of the woods, moving as quickly and quietly as we could. It took us only about ten minutes to spot the sheriff. He was face down on the edge of the road, about fifty yards from where we were. There was no sign of Tonya or his strange horseless contraption. I had to physically restrain Lucy from running over to the unmoving lawman. I spun her around towards me and away from where he lay. "Take out your stunner and cover me, Lucy," I said forcefully. "Stay right here and keep a sharp eye out. Alert me to any danger you see." Lucy was in shock, but she gathered her wits enough to agree to what I said. When I had her in a good covering position, I unholstered my revolver, edged my way out of the woods and rushed, bent over towards the sheriff. When I was within reach of him, I dropped down to the ground and lay prone for a good minute, carefully studying the woods opposite where we lay. I knew as soon as I dropped to my belly that I did not need to hurry on Sheriff Greer's account. His oddly twisted neck and dull, unfocused eyes made that obvious to even the casual observer. I holstered my pistol, reversed my stage gun until it hung by its sling in front of me, and then gingerly rolled Greer onto his back. I gasped at the sight of him, because the front of his shirt was slit in a number of places and drenched in blood. His face was battered beyond recognition and his neck was broken. Someone had made a sporting production out of killing him. I took a quick look around then hurried back to where Lucy was kneeling. "Is he dead?" she asked. I nodded as I pulled a blanket out of my bedroll. "If you can reach New London on that thing, call someone out here to pick up you and Greer's body. I'm going to see if I can figure out what happened here," I said. Lucy was operating in a daze, but she was still functioning. She took out her communicator and made a call directly to Liz. I left her to explain what had befallen the sheriff, and went over to cover his body with the blanket. That unpleasant chore done, I started looking around where he lay, trying to make some sense of what happened, and maybe find a clue about Tonya. As sorry as I was for what had happened to Greer, I was ten times happier that Tonya wasn't lying there beside him. It did not take long to find where Greer's carriage had stopped. At least four people had set upon the man, judging by the signs on the driver's side of the carriage. I could plainly see where they dragged and beat him. The other side of the vehicle's wheel tracks showed a scuffle with a like number of people. There were also pieces of torn cloth scattered around and the ground was splattered with dark red blood. My heart sank at that sight. I walked up the road a few dozen yards and found the tracks of two other vehicles and a couple of horses. The tracks ran from the road to a stand of trees and back. It appeared as if the Juicers (the only group I knew of in this time that could mount violence to this degree) had lain in wait and ambushed the sheriff. The only thing I couldn't figure was how they got him to stop in the first place. From where I stood, I could clearly see the tracks of the vehicles and horses leading off to the north. Based on the time that had elapsed since Lucy's communicator started chirping, they had less than a two hour head start. I turned around and walked back to where Greer lay. Lucy was standing over his body, but had not moved the blanket covering his face. "Liz has activated a detachment of the militia, it'll take them five or six hours to assemble and get here," she said. Her voice was stronger and more controlled now, so I thought she would be fine. "That's too long. Tonya will be fifty miles away by then. I'm leaving now to try and catch them. You stay here and wait for the militia and then sent them after me," I said. Lucy gave me an inscrutable look and shook her head. "I'm not staying here alone, and there is nothing I can do for the poor man anyway. Besides, you are going to need me and my communicator." I did not argue with her, because leaving her here alone was an ill conceived idea anyway. The bunch I was chasing might not be the only juicers in the area, and I did not need another woman to go missing on me. When we retrieved the mules, I was surprised when Lucy unwrapped a cloth from around the weapon I took from the juicer two days ago. She turned the weapon on its side and fiddled with a small metal knob for a second, then slung it over her shoulder. When I looked at her inquisitively, she shrugged. "I'm the one who researched these old particle beam rifles. I even found one in our museum's archives to familiarize myself with. This one has about a quarter of a charge left on the power supply magazine, so it will fire at least fifty more times." The juicers had made no attempt to conceal their trail, so we were able to follow it at a good pace. The horse tracks were indented and spaced in a manner that told me the horses were walking, so I was not worried about them running away from us. We followed them for another twelve miles before the sun set. For the last four of those miles, we were traveling due east. Lucy identified the slightly overgrown road we were on as the old caravan route between Paradise Valley and Casadega. "The caravans now use a route that passes through New London. That makes sense when you consider that we outlanders do all the trading now. The city people simply do not want to be bothered with something as mundane as trade." It was harder and slower following the tracks at night, but I managed to find them often enough to know we were still behind our quarry. I was surprised when we were still traveling an hour and a half after full dark. I had figured they would make camp near dark and yet if that were so, we would have surely caught up with them by now. Two hours later, that question was answered when the tracks turned onto a small side trail that was little more than a couple of ruts in the ground. I had us dismount, then we walked our mules into a small thicket. I ground tied the mules and motioned for Lucy to follow me. Two hundred yards down that trail, we spied a small cluster of low square concrete and metal buildings. A number of the buildings had lights shining through their windows, and there was much foot traffic between the two largest structures. I found us a good hiding spot and we hunkered down to observe the camp. It took me only thirty minutes to get a rhythm of the comings and goings, and to spot the three ill concealed guards. I have to admit, what I saw and heard during that half and hour chilled the marrow of my bones. All Lucy's banter about slavery was being played out in real life right in front of us as the Juicers abused a number of normal looking women at every turn. The women were obviously frightened and were quick to jump at the Juicers demands. Yet the strong and brutal juicers still struck and kicked them at will. It was the most disgusting conduct I had ever witnessed. I was almost frantic searching for a sign of Sonja and Tonya, when I over heard two Juicers talking as they walked between the buildings. One of them laughed as the other rubbed her jaw. "That big one put up a hell of a fight before she gave in huh, Gail?" "Yeah," the other Juicer answered, "but did you see her go at it when we finally got her down? She might have fought, but that girl sure knows how to love another woman," said the one named Gail. The other woman gave a braying laugh and punched her friend in the arm. "Her prissy little friend wasn't bad either. I love those reluctant acting ones who end up being screamers. I think she is a good candidate for the treatment, given her genome type." I was getting angrier by the minute, and my anger made me coldly detached and calm. It took me five minutes to work out a plan. When I had an idea of what I wanted to do, I signaled Lucy and we slipped back to where our mules were located. Once there, I laid out my plan. When I finished, Lucy was looking at me as if I were insane and tried to talk me out of it. "Why don't we go find the militia detachment first, Jeremiah? There must be twenty five of those monsters in there. You don't have a chance by yourself." We had lost contact with the militia when we took to this disused caravan route. Our best guess was that they were some hours behind us. Yet, even if they arrived in the next fifteen minutes, I did not see them being much of an asset. "The militia is not going to be much help unless they are armed with something besides the standard stunners. I've seen at least half a dozen of these cretins wearing the diffusion vests. If we can make them scatter in smaller groups, the militia can pick them off at will, or once we get these kidnapped women out of here, they can even assault this place. Regardless, though, I'm going in there and get Tonya and Sonja now." Lucy had no choice but to reluctantly agree. I briefed her and put her where I wanted her, not really counting on her to be of much help anyway. I tried to lighten the mood a little by teasing her some as I told her what I needed her to do. "Okay my little slave girl, here's what your master needs you to do. I want you to watch my back while I enter that big building. Aim low when you fire, and try for a wounding shot. Don't stay in the same position for more than three shots in a row. These abominations are not human anymore, Lucy, consider that when you have to shoot at them." Lucy looked determined as she nodded her head and adjusted something on the rifle. I kissed her and slipped off into the underbrush, headed towards one of the lackadaisical guards. The way I figure it, this was the most dangerous part of my plan, because I was going to try to neutralize the guard silently. I pulled my hunting knife out of its sheath and crept up behind the unsuspecting guard Indian style. It bothered me not a whit that in all likelihood, the short statured guard was probably a woman. I think that what ever witchcraft made them so muscular must have also changed them into pseudo-men anyway. I set myself behind the guard and impatiently waited for her to present me with an opening. My chance came when the doors of one of the buildings to our left crashed open. When the guard turned her head and attention in that direction, I sprang forward, slapped my open hand over her mouth and drove the blade of my knife into the side of her neck. She made a gurgling noise from her throat and her hands came up to ineffectually grab at my hand covering her mouth. I locked my left forearm and raked my knife blade across her throat again. It was over in only seconds, as the lifeless body sagged in my grasp. I quietly lowered the guard to the ground and cleaned my knife on her shirt. I had just killed my first woman, yet I felt no more remorse than I would have in killing a rabid dog. I stood in the guards place and held my breath, praying someone did not raise the alarm. After a couple of uneventful minutes, I took a deep breath, drew my pistol and rushed towards the door of the biggest building. Hardly breaking stride, I turned the door handle and slammed the door back on its hinges. I had hoped for the element of surprise at my entrance, and for a few seconds I achieved that. Only I was the one surprised. Actually, surprised was too mild a word for what I felt as I saw at least eight naked, heavily muscled, mannish looking Juicer women writhing around on the large mattresses with Tonya, Sonja and two other normal looking women. The Juicers appeared to be having much more fun than the normal women. I pointed my pistol at the ceiling, thumbed back the hammer and pulled the trigger. The weapon roared loudly in the confined space of the room. The women all jumped and a couple squealed in fright. Before any of them could move, I cocked the pistol again and pointed it at the biggest of the Juicer women. "Freeze or I will blow a hole through the first person that moves," I yelled. Eleven of the women did exactly as I ordered. The twelfth scrambled to pick up one of the beam rifles lying near her. My second bullet enforced my threat as I shot her in the right thigh. Her scream convinced the others to stay still. I recocked my Colt and leveled on the big woman again. I walked into the room a few more steps until my back was against the wall, away from the windows and doors. I turned some of my attention to the normal women, Tonya catching my eye first. Tonya was trying to smile, but her face was bruised and scratched and one of her eyes was nearly swollen shut. In fact, all of the women sported welts and bruises all over their bodies. "Tonya, grab that rifle and cover these creatures. If they move shoot them. You other three normal women find something to wear pronto, and let's get out of here." Tonya nodded and snatched up the beam rifle that the woman I shot had been reaching for. Tonya stood up gingerly, made sure the weapon was armed, and pointed it loosely in the direction of the Juicers. The other women looked dumbstruck, so I kicked some clothes in their direction and chivvied them into picking them up. I was back at the door in less than a minute from kicking it open. I peeked out the opening, just in time to see five or six armed Juicers come boiling out of the second building down from where we were. Without giving it a thought, I raised my pistol and rapidly emptied my last three rounds towards them. Two of those armed with particle beam rifles tumbled to the ground, but my third round went astray. I ducked back out of the lighted door way just as a bolt from a beam rifle blasted a gout of concrete off the building. I opened the flap of my ammunition pouch and fished a fresh cylinder out of it. I had just switched out cylinders when I heard a sharp buzzing noise. I jerked my head up just in time to see Tonya with the beam rifle raised in a firing position. Ten feet in front of her, the largest and most muscular of the Juicers was slowly pitching backwards. There was a hole no bigger than a twenty-two caliber slug between her eyes, and smoke was wafting up out of the hair on the back of her head. When I caught Tonya's eye, she shrugged and gestured with the barrel of the rifle. "She moved," was all Tonya had to say. By now, Sonya and the other two women were at least acting semi-lucid. I pointed to some rope and manacles lying on the floor and addressed them. "Take some of these restraints they were using on you and tie up these harridans. Don't worry about being gentle, just truss them up tight. Tonya, if one of them so much as flinches, send her to hell to join the one you shot." Tonya nodded. Her hawk like stare never wavering from the suddenly intimidated looking Juicers. "My pleasure," she said. Tonya's deadly tone of voice made it instantly obvious she meant what she said. Her reaction towards retribution to the abuse she'd suffered was the first sign I'd seen of real spunk among the Valley Dwellers. But then again, Tonya was one of the unaltered, so her responses weren't filtered by generations of medical voodoo. The new cylinder I had loaded in my pistol was filled with six rounds instead of the standard five I traveled with. I had one more loaded cylinder on my gun belt and eight shotgun rounds in a pouch sewed to the stage gun's sling. As long as Tonya remained angry and vengeful, I had one staunch ally. I prayed I had one more in Lucy, watching my back. I strode across the room and checked for another way out. There was a back entrance to the building, which opened up into the inky dark night. My original plan of grabbing Tonya and Sonja and leaving the rest to the militia went out the window when I saw how abused the women who had been there for awhile were. I had seen at least six or eight more, and was not about to leave them. I went back to the front door and assumed a prone position on the floor so I could peek out with out becoming a target. There was a flurry of activity as more Juicers were arguing about how to deal with me. The Juicers were mean, strong and even angrier than normal, but they weren't soldiers, so finding a plan was eluding them. I sighed and rose to my feet, my back pressed against the wall next to the door jamb. I looked back into the room and saw that all the Juicers were tightly hogtied. Tonya seemed more focused with every passing minute, so I figured she'd follow my directions. "Tonya, take the other women out the back door when I say go. Hide in the edge of the woods and shoot any Juicer that gets near you." Tonya hesitated a second, but nodded. "What are you going to do?" she asked. I gave her my most confident boyish smile and answered. "I'm going to do what any good soldier in the Glorious Army of Northern Virginia would do when he was outnumbered and outgunned," I said cockily. "I'm going to attack..." ------- Chapter 21 What I told Tonya about attacking was not braggadocio, because attacking the gaggle of Juicers before they could organize themselves was about the only choice I had. The odds were stacked against me as far as shear numbers were concerned, but I hoped my experience as a soldier and lawman would even the deck some. I had a thought and turned around to catch Tonya before she slipped out the back door. "Tonya, see if you can free any more of the normal women while you are out there. Peek in the back doors of these next two buildings to your right. Gather up all you can find and circle counter clockwise around the camp until you get to the road. Whatever you do, don't take any unnecessary chances, if you see a Juicer, shoot first and ask questions later." Tonya gave me a crooked little grin and a snappy salute. "Aye-aye Captain," she said. I rolled my eyes but returned her salute. "One last thing before you go: Do you know about how many of these creatures are here?" Tonya made a face and nodded. "I counted eight men and twenty four of the women. Four of the women aren't fully changed yet. Most all of them have one of the beam rifles, but many of the power supply magazines are questionable. A few of them carry bows and arrows as a back up. Be careful honey, because these abominations are cunningly insane." I told her, "yes dear," then watched as she moved out the back door. As soon as she was gone, I stooped low and rushed out of the building. I moved as fast as my legs would carry me for about ten yards, then I dropped to my belly and opened fire. I think the Juicers did not comprehend the threat I posed, until I started cutting them down with that second cylinder, because even after the two I'd shot earlier, they all sort of stood in a group and tried to return my fire. With them so close together, only the Juicers in the front of the mob had an unmasked shot at me. Of course those were the very muscle bound monsters I was duck shooting. I fired three times, sprang to my feet and dashed toward the wood line near where I dropped the guard. I like my chances much better with some cover and concealment. Plus, by moving into the woods, I was diverting the Juicers' attention away from where Tonya was hopefully busy collecting the other normal women. Now all I had to do was keep their attention on me. I dropped to one knee a few feet from the wood line. "Hey Juicers," I yelled. "Can't deal with a real man, can you? Throw down your weapons and surrender if you want to live." As soon as I finished hollering, I dove for the ground. It was a good thing I did, as a couple of energy bolts cut up the leaves above my head. I grinned that my ploy exposed two more Juicers with functioning beam rifles. I returned them a well aimed piece of nineteenth century lead for their trouble. I sprang to my feet and took a couple of quick steps into the underbrush. At the end of the second step, I heard a crackling noise and someone shoved a white hot poker into the calf of my left leg. I yelped most unmanfully and pitched forward, face first into the underbrush. When I fell, my pistol flew out of my hands and landed somewhere in the thicket. Somehow I composed myself enough to roll over and pull my stage gun from behind my back. My left leg was refusing to hold my weight, so I low-crawled forward to a break in the brush. I did not like what I saw even a little, as the Juicers were forming a ragged skirmish line. Directing the Juicers was a huge muscular mountain of a man with a bald head and a cruelly handsome face. "Nice shot Farrell," the big man bellowed in a deep basso voice. Then he hailed me. "You there in the bushes, if we have to come get you, we'll kill you most gruesomely." When I didn't answer, he cut loose with a couple of curses and turned his attention back to his people. "Stay spread out and let's go get him, he can only fire single shots, so when you see that flash, everyone fire at it." His instructions were good enough to cook my goose if I did not do something decisive. The head man was standing slightly behind the center of his line and partially screened from my view by two big women. I took a shot at him anyway. I steadied the shotgun, pulled back the rabbit ear hammers and fired both barrels towards the juicer leader. I rolled hard to my left as soon as I fired, ending up on my back about four feet away. I broke open the action of the shotgun and dug two fresh rounds out of my pouch as a stream of blasts from the beam rifles chewed up the woods from where I last fired. The blast from the shotgun had stopped the advance in its tracks. Two more Juicers were down, but neither of them were Mister Big. He, in fact, was cursing and haranguing his cohorts to move forward once again. I was in a bad situation, because my leg was still not cooperating holding my weight and I did not have nearly enough ammunition. I sighed, pulled back one hammer and sighted towards the big man again. The Juicers' leader must have figured out I was gunning for him, because he was crouched low behind some of his minions. With no clear shot at the leader, I took out another one of his soldiers that had a functioning weapon. The entire exercise reminded me of the Union Army's fruitless charges at our dug in troop at Fredericksburg. The difference here, though, was that I didn't have the ammunition to repulse all of them. I was set to start worming my way deeper into the small thicket, when suddenly a beam rifle bolt hissed by me, headed in the opposite direction. One of the juicers cried out, grabbed his thigh and pitched forward. I jerked my head around and there was Lucy, kneeling about three paces away, her rifle humming as it recharged. She smiled wanly when I caught her eye. I tried to calm and reassure her to keep her in the fight. "Good shooting, Lucy. We can treat the ones you wound, but no one can bring us back if they kill us." Lucy gave me a curt nod. It was obvious that she found shooting someone distasteful, but was resigned to doing whatever was necessary. "The long black mesh garment on some of them is a diffusion vest. You'll have to take care of those," she said, her voice only quavering slightly. I nodded and did just that. The ranks in front of us had thinned somewhat, but we still had more than a dozen of the creatures in two ranks not thirty yards from us. I broke open my action as Lucy fired, and stuffed two more shells in the breach. It was small comfort that I was down to my last six shots. I drew a quick bead on my next target, just as one of the Juicers in the back rank pitched forward with an agonizing scream. Two second later, another crumpled. Tonya was obviously behind them at the corner of the building. I had seen enough killing for one night. "Cease fire, cease fire," I yelled. Everyone sort of froze when I started yelling, so I motioned Lucy over to me. "Help me stand up Lucy, I am going to offer them terms." She was by my side in a flash, concern written on her face. I answered her question before she could ask it. "It's only a flesh wound in my calf, but it has numbed my leg." Between us, we propped me up on my good leg. I called out again. "We have you surrounded and in our crossfire. We aren't Valley Dwellers with stunners, and you have seen that we won't hesitate to kill you, so this is your one chance to surrender. Lay your weapons on the ground at your feet, back up three paces and sit down if you want to live." Only the leader and one other Juicer chose the second option. I was prepared for the big man to put up an argument, and had my stage gun trained on him while I talked. As soon as he started yelling, I yanked back on both triggers. At almost the same instant, a Juicer in the front rank crumpled to the ground, his beam rifle harmlessly discharging into the dirt. When the final accounting was completed, we had nineteen Juicer prisoners, five of them wounded. Thirteen were dead, including their gruesome leader and the large woman that was his second in command. We freed nine normal women, including Sonja and Tonya. I was exceedingly happy when Lucy finally raised the militia unit on her radio and directed them to our location. They arrived shortly before sun up. The militia was commanded by Sheriff Greer's chief deputy, an older, taciturn man born and raised in the Outlands. He took one look around and pulled out his communication device. "I'm going to need a lot more help out here, including medical personnel and more militia and a bunch of vehicles," he explained to Lucy. Chief Deputy Thatcher could communicate back to New London, because he and his troops had placed some device he called a repeater every seven miles between where we were and the town. I was bone-weary and my leg throbbed achingly, but I still stayed awake. As I sat with my leg propped up in front of the building full of trussed up Juicers, I reloaded my other two cylinders with powder packets, balls and primers, and mounted one in my Colt. Tonya came over and sat by me. For all she'd been through, she appeared remarkably unfazed by her harrowing experience. The only indication that the ordeal affected her was the beam rifle she refused to part with. "You saved my bacon, Tonya, but you were disobeying my order when you did it. Protecting those innocent civilians was more important than saving my worthless hell-bound hide," I said in mild reproach. "I did exactly as you said, up to the point of leaving you by yourself. The other women were in a safe place and I was between them and the Juicers. What you are forgetting Mister Mule-headed, is that the highest member of our government ordered me to protect you. Not to mention, nowhere in my oath did I swear to follow the orders of a maniac with more courage than common sense," she replied tartly. Then she leaned over and kissed me softly on the lips. "I did not doubt for a second you coming to get us, Jeremiah, and neither did Sonja. When you burst through that door, my heart almost jumped from my chest at the sight of you," she said. I did not know how Sonja felt about matters, because she and the other normal women were sedated and sleeping peacefully in one of the buildings. Lucy and the militia medical sergeant decided to sedate them, because they were all seriously distressed. They were to stay sedated until better qualified medical personnel were available to treat them. I asked Tonya why she was taking her abuse at the hands of the Juicers so much better than the other women. She shrugged and thought for a few seconds before she answered. "I think one reason is that I was only a captive for a few hours. I'd also like to think that I am mentally and physically tougher than those women, but maybe I'm just more vindictive. Whatever the reason, I had no qualms about vaporizing those Juicers, and I don't feel an ounce of regret or guilt for it even now," she said defiantly. I quickly told her that to me, killing one of those monsters was no worse than dispatching a rabid dog. The way I figured it, the Juicers gave up the right to be treated humanely when they voluntarily gave up their humanity. The medical sawbones finally made it to me after treating all the seriously wounded Juicers. I did not begrudge him holding me out to last, because I hoped it meant my injuries were not that severe. I know it certainly didn't look bad, as it was just a thirty-two caliber sized hole in the front and back of my lower left leg, just to the right of my shin bone. There was only a small trickle of blood from either hole. I did have persistent burning pain deep in my leg, but I had been stepped on by mules that hurt worse. Somehow the injury to my calf translated to my foot not acting as it should. I could not feel my big toe, and my foot refused to bend at the ankle. The medical sergeant made the pain go away with one swift jab of a needle into my thigh. In fewer than ten minutes, I felt good enough to dance. Around noon, the arrival of a couple of large, boxcar shaped vehicles rolling into the Juicers' compound woke me from a well deserved siesta. As soon as they lurched to a stop, a door on the side of the lead unit opened, and Liz Smith jumped to the ground. Lucy walked over to her and the two women talked privately for a few minutes before heading toward Tonya and me. Liz stopped in front of me and tried to prevent me from getting to my feet. "You are wounded, Mister Brock. We can dispense with the formalities," she said. I felt as if I had swilled down half a dozen shots of Tequila, so as soon as I was standing, I attempted my best dancehall bow. "Tis but a scratch, Your Loveliness," I slurred gallantly. Tonya grabbed me as I rocked forward and kept me from falling on my face. At a look from Liz, Tonya shrugged and explained. "Synthomorph. I think the medic went overboard with the dosage, because Jeremiah is so big." Liz laughed and took my hand. "The least we can do is let you nap in peace after all you've done," she said. With that, Tonya and Lucy helped me into the building and onto a bed with a comfortable mattress. I was sawing logs within seconds of them kissing my cheek goodnight. I awoke from sawing logs to feeling as if someone was sawing off my leg. The injection I had been given must have run its course, and the pain had awakened me. I stifled a moan and sat up in the bed. As soon as I was upright, a woman I had never seen before materialized beside the bed with a cup in her hand. She handed me a couple of pea sized pellets and the cup. "Swallow these two pills, Citizen Brock, and drink the contents of the cup. The pills are for pain and infection, and the liquid will promote tissue regeneration. As soon as you drink the liquid, I'll go find the doctor so she can explain the nature of your wound to you." I nodded, gulped down the pellets and swigged on the thick green liquid. I handed the empty cup to the woman and lay back on the mattress. The woman spun on her heels without a by-your-leave and skedaddled out the door. The pill for pain was fast acting enough that when the doctor walked in ten minutes later, I was much more comfortable. The doctor was a diminutive Asian woman with a pleasant face and a quick smile. She introduced herself and put me at ease immediately. "Hello, Mister Brock, I'm Doctor Darla Wong. No jokes about my name please," she said. She had a sweet gentle voice to go along with her very pleasing looks. I liked her immediately so I gave her a smile and a bad pun. "If you think I would tease you about your name, then you are all Wong," I said straight-faced. She groaned and rolled her eyes heavenward, but her cheeks dimpled as she tried to hide her grin. "Just for that, I'm not going to renew your pain medication," she said. Then her expression changed to all business, and she told me about my injury. "We did a field mediscan on you while you slept. The concentrated energy beam that went through your calf, nicked your fibula and took a small chunk out of it, but the major damage was the severing of the deep peroneal or fibular nerve. The reason you have foot drop, the inability to raise your foot at the ankle, is because the deep fibular nerve controls motor function to that part of the foot..." I didn't wait for her to say anything else. I knew that foot dragging gait from seeing it on numerous victims of the war. "So I'm a cripple now," I interjected. The tiny doctor looked startled for a moment then seemed to realize something. She shook her head negatively. "Not at all. The problem is easily rectified now by a fairly simple surgical procedure that we'll perform as soon as we get you back to civilization. You'll be off your feet for a few days, but you should be as good as new in a week." That was a load off my mind! I grabbed her hand and kissed it as I told her thank you. As soon as we touched, her eyes blinked and she wobbled unsteadily on her feet. She gasped and snatched her hand back, looking at me in shock. "I have to go," she mumbled dazedly and left as abruptly as the other woman had. I was more than a little bewildered by Doctor Wong's sudden departure, when Lucy walked in with Tonya and Sonja. Tonya looked bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but Sonja was quiet and subdued. Sonja was quick to come into my arms when I held them out to her, though, and before you know it, she was stretched out beside me in the bed, hanging on to me for dear life. I gave the other women a quizzical look and Lucy cleared things up for me. "Doctor Wong gave her a mild sedative to help keep her emotions in check until we can get her some treatment. Liz thought a few minutes with you might help more than more medication." I guess Liz was right, because once Sonja snuggled in my arms against my uninjured side, she visibly relaxed. We spent the night in the Juicer compound and departed for New London the following morning. I rode in one of the vehicles Liz called a bus, sitting in a comfortable seat between Lucy and Liz. Tonya and Sonja occupied the seat behind us. As soon as we were moving, I asked Liz the question that had been on my mind since the first Juicer attack. "What in the world are those creatures, where did they come from, and are there any more of them wandering around?" I asked. Liz had some answers for me. "From questioning the ones you captured, we know this was the only Juicer enclave. By the way, they call themselves Wolves, not Juicers. There were plans for splitting the group up and establishing another of what they called a 'pack' closer to Casadega. From chemical interrogation, we also discovered where they found the beam rifles. They happened on a late twenty-first century underground weapons depot that somehow survived intact all these years. We have a team there now, securing the place. "As to what they are, that's a complicated question. Complicated, because they started off as normally altered men and women from the valley, and in a short time they will be that again. Right at this minute, though, they are pumped full of chemicals and hormones that have the effect of making them stronger, faster and better coordinated than any other humans. Unfortunately, it also makes them irrational and hostile. The changes they went through are the result of research done by the man you identified as their leader and dispatched last night. "His name was Joshua Ballard. He was a brilliant molecular biologist doing research at the university. Ballard revived some long forgotten steroid and hormonal experiments and used himself as an experimental subject. He recruited his wife and some dissatisfied colleagues as well. Ballard and the others were dissatisfied with the status quo in Paradise Valley, but instead of joining us, he created what he called the Cult of the Wolf. "Ballard's regime of steroids and human growth hormones was especially appealing to the altered women of Paradise Valley, because it set them apart in physical appearance and ability from the ninety-five percent of women who have the same general characteristics. The women underwent massive personality changes, too. The huge doses of testosterone that made them so muscular and strong also caused them to be aggressively attracted to feminine appearing women. "Doctor Wong found a reference to similar cases from the twentieth Century among certain steroid enhanced Eastern European female athletes. Those females also became sexual predators against their own gender. "This whole sorry, sad episode is just another indication that the traditional social and political order is in serious decline. A sizeable segment of the citizenry is starting to realize that there is no future in the path their leaders have them on." ------- Even though it was what I vowed not to do, I did end up going back to Paradise Valley with Sonja. This time, we used the southern trade gate, a wider, less steep and well guarded pass that led into the valley from the southeast. Liz had sent advanced notification of our arrival, so there were a couple of the big coaches waiting for us at the single bar gate. A compliment of medical personnel was with the coaches, including Sarah Hunnicutt and Coleen. Doctor Wong filled Sarah and Coleen in on the medical situation for everyone as we transferred from Liz's buses to the Pleiad's much nicer coaches. Liz and Lucy both hugged me goodbye and smiled when I said they would be seeing me again soon. I was not much surprised that Tonya made the same promise. I could not help but think that Tonya would be the perfect replacement for Sheriff Greer. I insisted on moving between conveyances under my own power. No way was I going to make someone carry me when I could walk well enough to move fifty feet or less, utilizing the sturdy staff I had Tonya cut for me. My stubbornness resulted in me having a doctor in each ear telling me what a fool I was with every step I took. I kept my mouth shut until I reached the Pleiad's coach. I carefully leaned my staff against the smooth skin of the coach and grabbed tiny Doctor Wong around the waist. She squeaked in surprise, but shut up soon enough when I kissed her soundly. "Thanks for everything, Doc. I'll see you as soon as I'm walking again," I said cheerily when I broke the kiss. Wong stepped back and absently touched her lips with her dainty fingertips. She gave me this unreadable look, nodded and walked away. It took the better part of an hour and a half to make the trip back to the central building at the university. It shocked me to realize that it had only been six days ago that I arrived there from the past. One thing I had to say about my visit is that there had not been a dull moment to it so far. Chief Councilor Bearclaw and the other members of the Pleiad met us when we arrived. I now knew that two of the councilors were women sympathetic with Liz's cause. Coleen took charge of the female patients and hustled them into the building. Over Sarah's strenuous objections, I hobbled along with the politicos to a private room where Tonya and I briefed them on what had happened. Unbelievably, Bearclaw was irritated at Tonya and me for not bringing Liz back with us, even though she was obviously not guilty of the crimes in the original warrant. Bearclaw's reaction caused some raise eyebrows among the other councilors. The council finally trundled off to their chambers to discuss the matter in private. Tonya also departed. She had instructions to raid Ballard's laboratory here at the university. Questioning of the Juicers revealed that Ballard had helpers there that were smuggling him materials and supplies. A visibly unhappy Sarah was waiting outside the door with a couple of orderlies and a cot on wheels. Before I could say a word, she brandished one of those needle-vials. "Get on the gurney, Jeremiah, or I am going to sedate you," she threatened. I held up a placating hand and gave her my best boyish smile. "Gee Doctor, no need to be so testy. All you had to do was ask," I said appeasingly. The orderlies rolled me on the gurney-bed thing right back to Mediscan Unit Two. The cramped room filled with strange and frightening machines was fast becoming my home-away-from-home. Sarah had me hop off the gurney and sit on the big table affair that dominated the center of the room. As soon as the orderlies departed, she told me to strip. She had to help me with my boots, but I was soon naked and supine on the table. Sarah held my hand and carefully explained what was about to happen. I sure appreciated that. Sarah moved back and sat behind the half counter desk. She gave me a smile and activated the containment field around the bed. In seconds I was in dreamland. ------- Chapter 22 I woke up still laying on the big table. I was not uncomfortable in the least, as I was covered with a light blanket and my head rested on a soft pillow. My injured left leg didn't hurt a bit; in fact, I could not feel it from the knee down. As soon as I opened my eyes, a chime sounded and Sarah walked up to the table. Sarah shined a small light in my eyes and asked me some nonsensical questions. She asked if I knew where I was and who she was. My mouth was mighty dry, but I managed to croak out answers that satisfied her. She handed me a cup of water with ice in it. As I drank, she filled me in on what had been done while I was unconscious. "While you were under, we did some microsurgery on your leg. The beam path made a perfect conduit for our micro instruments and miniature camera. The procedure was straight forward, and we did not run into anything unexpected. We repaired the chip in your fibula with calcium putty that will harden into bone in about forty-eight hours. "Repairing your deep peroneal nerve was a little more difficult, because about a half inch of it was vaporized by the particle beam. We were able to affect a splice between the two ends of the nerve, using a thick thread of your neurological stem cells. For the next seventy two hours, that thread will transform itself into clones of the nerve cells to which it is attached. When the conversion is complete, the nerve will be completely functional again. "The bullet wound through your leg was surprisingly clean and infection free, so we applied a material called 'dermaplast' to the entrance and exit wounds. The dermaplast is also made from your stem cells, and will close the wound by cloning itself to your skin cells." I had to make her go back and clarify a bunch of the future medical gobbledygook, but Sarah patiently explained everything so all my questions were answered. The gist of her lecture was that I would be mostly off my feet for three days. After three days, I would be as good as new, no limp, no foot dragging, just a couple of small scars. Another pair of cheerful friendly folks came into the room and loaded me onto one of the rolling beds. They whisked me from the mediscan room back to the room in which Doctor Mendez stuck me when I first arrived. This time, though, the two medical assistants rolled me right into the room without having to do anything special to open the door. Sarah, who had been walking with us, commented on that. "There is no quarantine in place this time, Jeb, so you can come and go as you please. I know that's not much consolation right now, given that you are bedridden, but three days from now, it will still be unlocked." The room had been changed since I was last in it. The sofa, chair and coffee table were gone, replaced by a medium sized bed with a small rolling table next to it. According to the glowing green numbers over the cooking stove, it was five in the afternoon when Sarah and the orderlies tucked me into the comfortable bed. One of the helpers filled a metal ewer with water and ice, set it on the small table next to the bed, and departed with the other orderly. While the orderlies were fussing over me, Sarah had retreated into the tiny area that passed for a kitchen, and started removing things from the ice box. She put some containers into the instant stove thing-a-ma-bob, closed the glass door and pushed some buttons before she came over to where I was laying. "I had someone make us some red beans with ham and rice. As soon as it's warm, we'll eat. I know you must be starving," she said. She knew me too well, because by then, my big intestines were eating my little ones. She fixed me a bowl of beans and rice and adjusted the table so it was over my lap. Then she adjusted the bed until I was sitting upright. As we were eating, I asked her if she had heard from Coleen about Sonja and the other women's condition. She frowned and nodded. "Some of those girls are severely damaged, both mentally and physically. It will take some time for them to deal with the emotional trauma. Right now, three of them are in hyperbolic sleep while their bodies heal. While they are in suspended animation, the nuero-psychiatric units are expunging the worst of the memories. Thank goodness, Sonja was only a captive for a day. She was abused, but not to the extent the other women were. I suspect she'll be along to visit you shortly." After making her say that mouthful in words I could understand, I felt a wash of relief that Sonja was okay. I still cared deeply for her, even though we had polar-opposite views about the New Englanders. For that matter, I still cared for Coleen, even though I thought her spoiled, head-strong and willful. Sarah's prediction was proven correct, when Sonja, Helena and Coleen dropped in for a visit later that evening. I was surprised that except for itching terribly as the feeling returned, my wound bothered me none at all. As soon as Coleen arrived, she and Sarah changed the dressing on my leg. I think they did that mostly so Coleen could check my wound herself. I was having my problems dealing with Coleen's personality, but I did not question for a second her ability as a doctor. I was happy to see Helena and she felt the same way. Helena and I had a bond that was very strong but her position as the lead scientist on the Hawkingium project was forever keeping us apart. Some mysterious something had to be done with the dozens of pounds of the stuff we brought back with us and she was key to getting it done. She kissed me and told me she loved me. "The critical phase of stabilizing the Hawkingium we brought back is almost completed, Jeremiah, and when it is I want to spend as much time with you as possible," she said. Sonja was in a better state of mind that evening also. She was somewhat subdued in her demeanor, but at least she was not acting as if she was about to jump out of her skin. When she asked if she could lay with me, I scooted to the edge of the bed and she carefully crawled in beside me. A few minutes later, Coleen and Helena departed, and Sarah went to bed. Sonja was pressed up tightly to my side. I knew she had something on her mind, so I waited patiently for her to spit it out. After ten minutes of snuggling, she finally let it out. "I've been thinking about those horrid Juicers all day, Jeremiah. Not just about what they did to me; I am coming to grips with that. I was thinking about what they felt compelled to do to their own bodies. Did you know that some of the women who assaulted me had chemically altered themselves until their clitorises became small penises? They actually bragged about their ability to commit rape, and took delight in raping us with their mutated organs. "Until this evening, I thought that Professor Ballard had coerced his followers into his plans. I know different now, because Tonya's investigation of Ballard has already turned up dozens of more people in the process of altering themselves to become juicers. That's why Tonya's not here, by-the-way, she's out rounding up the last of them. "All this evening, I've also been thinking about what I saw in New London, and at the Juicer camp. As I thought about it, I realized that Liz Smith was correct when she said our society is on the verge of collapse. I'm not ready to say her ideas are the solution, but I have to admit that her people are the only ones doing anything constructive about it." I agreed with Sonja, but I did not know if she was expressing how she felt, or if she was acting as an agent for the Pleiad to gain information from me. Even if she was the Pleiad's agent, I still spoke truthfully. I was through with stepping lightly around these folks. "You are right that Liz's ideas might not be the best, but they are a dozen times better than what is happening in this valley. And if you think about it, the Juicers were not that big a leap from the tinkering you all have done with nature anyway. Ballard just took your playing God to a new level. I really appreciate all you folks have done for me, but as soon as I am well enough to travel, I am heading out. I cannot in good conscience stay around her and watch as you commit slow suicide." I expected more of a reaction out of Sonja, but she did not even stiffen at my pronouncement. "Where will you go?" was all she asked. What she asked was also the question on my own mind. The way I looked at it, the three choices I faced were stay in the valley, join Liz's cause, or go back to my own time. Choice number one, I had just ruled out, and the ill will between me and the people running this mess probably ruled out option three. "I am probably going to join the New Englanders. I think what meager skills I have would be of better use to them than to you all anyway. If you can arrange it, I will tell Mister Bearclaw that as soon as I can walk." Again, Sonja did not react as I expected, instead, she nodded her head and chuckled. "I don't see you doing any less, Jeremiah. Although I have to add that your 'meager skills' have probably saved my life three times in the three weeks I've known you. Seriously, though, I am starting to see Liz's point. It was a revelation to me that we as a society are so out of touch that something as insidious as the Juicers could flourish right under our noses." We talked a while longer, until the tablet Sarah gave me made me too drowsy to continue. I yawned and apologized to Sonja right before I started sawing logs. I awoke the next morning as the first light of dawn filtering into the valley pushed away the gloom of the night. The sleep had refreshed me and I felt sinfully good as I stretched and yawned. My stretching disturbed the still snoozing Sonja, and she muttered something and pressed herself tighter against my side. How we both managed to make it through the night without falling off the bed was a miracle. We must not have moved an inch all night. I was enjoying the feel of Sonja's naked body and Little Johnny Reb was as at full extension, but I had to pee so badly, my eye teeth were floating. I swung out of the bed and stood up. I was about to take a step, when I remembered my injured leg. I stopped short and stood still, waiting for it to protest such rough treatment so soon after my surgery. Strangely, my leg felt as good as the rest of me. I took a tentative step, and when I felt no hint of pain, shrugged and walked to the bathroom. As soon as I took the first step, I knew whatever Sarah had done was successful, because my foot swung up smoothly at the ankle and my gait was perfectly normal. I had my head in the ice box, scrounging around for something to eat, when I heard Sarah gasp. "What on Earth are you doing out of bed?" she screeched. Her yelling woke up Sonja, who sat up quickly and gaped at us. I explained to Sarah how good I felt. She looked dubious, then amazed as I showed her that I could walk normally. "There is no way you should have healed that rapidly. Go sit at the table and I'll call for some breakfast for us. As soon as we eat, I'm taking you back to Mediscan." She huffed. Sarah became even testier when I insisted on taking a shower before I did anything else. Sonja volunteered to help me, however, so Sarah put up with it. The shower made my good morning even better as Sonja and I washed each other clean as a whistle. I was hesitant to touch her because of her recent ordeal, but she was of the opposite opinion. She considered my hands on her therapeutic. "I love how you touch me, Jeremiah," she said. "It is the perfect antidote for what happened." I was all for administering an even more potent antidote, but Sonja put me off until after my trip to Mediscan Unit Two. "We'll finish this when Sarah clears you medically. Until then, I'm not about to do something that might set back your recovery. If I did that, there would be hell to pay from your other women," she said with a laugh. Thirty minutes later, I was in my familiar spot on the metallic table. Since it was early morning, Sarah did not have any trouble securing the unit for her use. Sarah told me to lie still while the unit looked me over. I did not as much as twitch for the three minutes it took. Sarah was so intent on something on the picture machine, she seemed to forget I was there. She finally looked up when I called her name. "Sorry," she said contritely, "but this is amazing. The scan shows your leg almost completely healed. The osteoputty has completely set, the nerve splice looks as if you were never injured, and your wound is ninety percent closed. You can sit up, but stay on the scanning bed for a minute. I need Coleen's take on this." Sarah snatched up her vidcomm and called Coleen as I sat up on the table and pulled down the leg to my britches. Sarah and I were chatting about me going back to the outlands for about five minutes, before Coleen careened through the door. Completely ignoring me, she and Sarah had a whispered conversation as they both stared at the picture machine. Finally, Coleen looked up and gave me the first sincere smile I'd seen from her in days. "You are a constant surprise, Jeremiah, I'll give you that. We have never seen such rapid healing. If you consent, we'd like another blood sample." I smiled and nodded my assent. Coleen was learning that when dealing with mules and muleskinners, asking reasonably, instead of making presumptuous demands, was the best course of action. We chatted for a few minutes, and when I asked, Coleen informed me that Sonja was bouncing back to normal quite rapidly. "I think her experiences in your time have made her more resilient than the other women. She also wasn't there that long, so she wasn't ground down by the constant abuse. Also, the unshakeable faith Tonya had in you coming to their rescue, gave Sonja strength. "By the way, Tonya just laughed when we recommended she see a psychiatrist. She said that the form of therapy you taught her was much better. She rounded up all the juicer candidates and seized Ballard's lab and computers, then waltzed in to Security Detachment's operations office and resigned her commission. The Pleiad is most unhappy with her doing that. She said to tell you that she'd be over to see you as soon as she caught a few hours sleep." Before I could formulate a comment about all that, the result of my blood tests came streaming across the screen they were sitting in front of. By the time half the screen was filled with glowing green numbers, both women were jabbering excitedly. I could not for the life of me follow the conversation, because I only recognized one or two words in every exchange. After about three minutes of rapid fire conversation in what sounded like mostly Latin, Sarah turned to me with an explanation that I could understand. "No wonder you heal so quickly, Jeb, your auto-immune system is at least twice as strong as an altered person, and two and a half times stronger than we unenhanced people. Your stem cells are much stronger and more efficient, too." she said excitedly. Sarah was beaming happily, but Coleen looked thoughtful. She glanced at the screen one more time and then turned to me. "When you arrived here, we only did a cursory check of your DNA and blood, Jeremiah, to make sure your presence was not a threat to us. When we introduced you to the Mediscan, it was to assess your health and make sure your presence here was not a threat to you. It seems that the small adjustments we made to your body, coupled with your strong constitution, have made you the type of superior physical specimen that Ballard was trying to achieve. We will need to put you through a much more stringent series of medical test to determine what other surprises you have for us," she said. I noticed that Sarah frowned at what Coleen said as I gave her my reply. "I will be happy to help," I lied. "Set it up for tomorrow." It would be a cold day in hell before I let these people mess around with my body any more than they had already. Their eagerness to tinker with God's creations unsettled me, and Sarah frown indicated that she was not happy with the idea either. Putting Coleen off until the next day gave me twenty-four hours to escape to the outlands. Coleen reinforced my resolve when she said she was going to share the results of my test with Doctor Mendez. I did not trust Mendez any further than I could throw him. As soon as Coleen was out of the room, I started to express my concerns to Sarah. She put her finger to her lips to shush me. "We'll talk about that later. Right now, let's get you outside for some fresh air," she said. Even a dumb old muleskinner could figure out that she thought someone might overhear our conversation that did not need to, so I shut my bear trap. We did not finish the conversation until we were sitting on a concrete bench out in the grassy and tree-lined square in the center of the university complex. I trusted Sarah Honicutt much more than I did the rest of the medicos, including Coleen, so I told her my misgivings without divulging my plan to escape. She shared my concerns. "I don't trust Doctor Mendez not to experiment on you, Jeb. He considers you somehow less than human, so to him, medical ethics wouldn't necessarily apply to you. It might be better if we found somewhere else to be tomorrow." "We?" I asked. She nodded her head quickly. "Both of us. I am not going to be a part of anything Mendez might have in mind, and you are still my patient," she said emphatically. Then she dropped her eyes shyly and continued. "Besides, I want to be with you more than I want to stay here. I overheard what you told Sonja about joining the Outlanders, and I want to go with you." I pulled her into my arms and gave her a kiss, then stood up and took her hand. "Let's go back to the apartment and wait for Tonya. She will know how to get us out of here without raising any alarms. Having you with us will make me very happy," I said. Back in the small apartment, we continued the kiss we started on the bench in the square. I loved the feel of Sarah's plush body, so different from all the other women I'd been with in this time. As our passions heated up, Sarah suddenly pulled away from me. "Before we get too involved, I need to tell you something, Jeb." I nodded and she continued. "If we make love, chances are I'll become pregnant. I am fertile, because I was lucky enough to have my name selected in the annual reproduction lottery last year. Population is controlled here by strictly limiting the number of children born each year. Last year, over five thousand women applied for the one hundred pregnancy permits authorized. No man I have approached about fathering a child with me was interested, because I insisted that the baby be unaltered." Sarah's little speech gave me pause, because I did not have a clear answer for her. On the one hand, I would love fathering her child, but on the other, I was obviously not in a position to commit myself to being around to help her raise our off spring. When I told her that, she smiled and kissed me. "It's sweet that you are concerned for me, but in our society, the father is seldom involved with raising a child anyway. That you might spend any time with us would be extraordinary." Having heard that, I was unresisting as she pulled me into the bedroom. When Sarah said "make love," she was not just whistling Dixie, because that is exactly what we did. Yes, there was passion aplenty, but it was tempered with a sweet tenderness that made the experience much more fulfilling. To add icing on the cake, Sarah was a passionate woman, and for the difference in our size, we fit together surprisingly well. We were both dazed when I finally fell off her an hour and three stupendous couplings later. We cuddled together afterwards, oblivious that we were covered in sweat and the evidence of our joining. I can not remember ever being as content with a woman as I was at that moment. I guess Sarah felt the same way, because she kept murmuring my name and kissing any part of me she could reach. We climbed out of the bed after a few minutes of recuperation and tumbled into the shower. As we were drying off, Sarah giggled at my growling stomach and promised me a nice lunch for making her so happy. We were sitting at the table polishing off the last of the roast beef sandwiches she'd made, when Tonya came waltzing through the door. Tonya looked different somehow, more alive and vibrant as she gave me a steamy kiss. She was as amazed as everyone else that I was already on my feet, and listened closely as Sarah explained the reason why. Tonya immediately grasped the implications of me submitting to testing by Mendez and his crew, even though Coleen would be there. She made sure the device that recorded everything that happened in the room was disabled before she said anything. "We need to get you out of here, Jeremiah, and the sooner the better. Give me an hour or two and I'll set something up." When Sarah mentioned that she was going also, Tonya sent her to gather whatever essentials she needed to travel with. For my part, I had left my weapons with Liz and my other possessions were still at her house, so all I had were my saddle bags with a change of clothes in them. Both women gave me kisses and departed. The dust from the women leaving had hardly settled before Sonja returned from meeting with the Pleiad. She looked concerned as she sat down at the small kitchen table with me. Before she sat down, she performed the same ritual that Tonya had to insure our privacy. Once she was seated, she explained her agitation. "The news of the Juicers and the extent of their organization are not sitting well with the citizens. The recall process has already started to remove Chairman Bearclaw and three of his supporters from the Pleiad. The voting is about even so far, but there is a good chance that we will have a new Pleiad and Council before the day is over. So I don't think a meeting with Bearclaw is in your future. "Also, a surprising percentage of the talk on the discussion boards is about forming closer relations with the Outlanders to prevent something like this from happening again. I am amazed by the number of citizens who are sympathetic to Liz Smith's cause. Anyway, given all the upheaval, it might be best if you lay low for a while." I told her I thought that was good advice and that I would do that very thing. I did not tell her of my plans, because I did not know whether she would keep them to herself. After all, she was still the Pleiad's top assistant, and she had already shown much loyalty to them. I figured I could get word to her once I was out of the government's reach. Leaving the university and town was not the slightest problem, because as far as everyone knew, I was still an employee of the Pleiad and a patient at the hospital. Tonya rounded up one of the bigger horseless carriages and drove it pell-mell to her mother's ranch. Tonya reminded me of my stage coach driving friend Bob Randolph, as she whipped the big carriage around a couple of curves with reckless abandon. Remembering my experience with Bob when we were being pursued by robbers, I kept looking behind us. I guess it dawned on Sarah what I was doing, because she smiled reassuringly and put her hand on my arm. "No one is after us, Jeremiah, or Tonya would be driving faster," she said. Amazingly, we made it to Carol Lawson's spread without dying. I was very happy to hop out of the carriage when it rolled to a stop. Once again, Carol came out on the porch to meet us, only this time, she was wearing a short dress that hugged her figure as if it was applied with a paint brush. On her feet she wore some sort of slipper with a long and narrow heel. She was easily the sexiest dressed woman I had ever seen. Tonya saw her mother and let out a groan. Just to tease Tonya, I bounded up onto the porch, took Carol in my arms and kissed her soundly. She sagged against me when I pulled my lips from hers. "That frock is quite fetching on you, Missus Lawson," I said formally. She gave me a devilish smile and a wink with her face hidden from Tonya. "This old thing?" she asked in mock surprise. "This is what I wear when I clean house." I looked over at Tonya as she rolled her eyes heavenward. "My mother is a hussy," she moaned. I was stunned when Carol replied, "I'm seventy-one years old, Tonya, so I guess I can be anything I want to be." Carol looked about half the age she claimed, if that even. I was definitely asking Sarah about the rejuvenation thing first chance I had. I mean, I knew that folks here were older than they looked, but Great Scott! After greeting Carol, I helped the other women with their baggage. They both had packed a couple of valises with clothing to last them a while. Thinking of the baggage and the need to move them, reminded me that we had left the mounts we had borrowed from Carol at the Juicer camp, under the care of the New England Militia. I flushed in embarrassment about it and quickly apologized to Carol. "No Problem Honey," she said breezily, "Liz messaged me that she had a detail bring them back. They will be waiting at the top of the first ridge tomorrow morning. Instead of me riding up and bringing them home, you can just take them out again." My ears perked up at the mention of staying another night at Carol's. Not only was I in for another good meal, I was also going to spend another evening in the company of this enchanting woman who claimed to be even older than my elderly mother. Of Course, I had misunderstood, and instead of sleeping in a comfortable bed in the log house, we ended up sleeping on mats in a drovers' hut halfway up the valley rim. We spent the night there to make it harder for any pursuit that might materialize. We did get a good meal before we left, and Carol went with us to bring the mules and horses we were riding back. Sarah was not the horsewoman Tonya or Carol was, but she could ride well enough to keep up. And I'll tell you, being there with those three future women made the dilapidated line shack seem like a mansion as they all three snuggled me all night long to keep warm. ------- Chapter 23 I woke up shortly after first light snuggled tightly against Carol in the chilly line shack. My arm was draped over her and my big hand was full of her even bigger breast. My morning erection was pressed firmly against her large shapely derriere. I hated the idea, but I needed to answer Mother Nature's call. I reluctantly released Carol's breast, quietly arose from our pallet and wandered outside to take care of my necessaries. As I approached the outhouse that sat behind the rough hewn wooden shack, I was struck once again by how many things in the future mirrored things in my times. Thinking about the time I came from led to thoughts of my family and friends back in the nineteenth century. How long, I wondered, would it be before I saw them again? My sainted mother was elderly for the times in which she lived. Would she even be alive if and when I made it back? I finished my business and headed back to the line shack. Sarah was coming out of the hut as I was walking back in. I guess my thoughts were readable on my face because she stopped and grabbed my arm. "What's the matter, Jeb, is your leg bothering you?" she asked worriedly. I am unsure if I would have answered that question truthfully if anyone besides Sarah asked it. I answered her because Sarah had a caring and kind heart and I trusted her enough to show her my weaknesses. "No, my leg is fine. I was just thinking about my mother and the rest of my family. Every day that passes brings Mama closer to her maker, and every day that passes is one less that I'm there to protect them all," I said with a sigh. Sarah's mouth made a small round 'oh' of surprise. "It means no such thing, Jeremiah, not in the least. That's because when you return to your time it will be to the exact second from which you departed. Think about it, Honey, time for you cannot exist unless you are there to experience it. And if any measurable amount of time passes without you in it, you are erased from that time line forever. "The big problem with creating the time travel apparatus was finding a way to synchronize the two ends of the time line finely enough so a person returned the instant they left. Helena was the one who discover a way to do that based on some atomic property of Hawkingium. Helena's Hawkingium 'clock' is accurate to a ten-billionth of a second. "The reason you returning with Sonja and her team was such a shock was because none of our brains could comprehend poor Johnny Chen disappearing and you appearing all in the same instant." I do not know which amazed me more, what she said or me actually understanding it. Sarah explanation took quite a load off my mind. I gave her a hug and a grateful, sloppy kiss. My mind was working a mile a minute as I pondered the ramifications of that new reality. In ten seconds I bet I came up with ten ideas. "So we can go back and forth and never loose a minute in either time?" I asked rhetorically. "That means we can live and make things better in both." Sarah nodded, not bothering to step back out of my arms. "Yes, you could do that, the caveat being the Pleiad agreeing to use the time machine for that purpose." That statement sobered me somewhat because as things stood now, doing favors for me was probably the last thing on the Pleiad's agenda. "That might be a problem then. I'm not their favorite person right now," I allowed with a frown. Sarah pulled my head down for a real kiss and wiggled her plush body against me as she stood on her tip-toes. When she finally broke the kiss she had me panting like a hound dog in July. She leaned back in my arms and gave me an impish grin. "The composition of the Pleiad is subject to change, Jeremiah. Liz Smith is ready to openly challenge Council President Bearclaw. With your help, I don't think it will be long before the valley dwellers and outlanders have one government under her leadership. I am fairly certain that Elizabeth has plans for you playing a big role in all of this." ------- When we crested the ridge line that formed the eastern rim of the valley we spotted the camp of the outlander militia detachment that was returning our horses. When we rode up among them, a youngish looking militia man rendered me a snappy salute. "Good morning, Citizen Brock, I am Lieutenant Deming. Queen Elizabeth sends her regards and requests that you allow us to escort you and your companions to New London." I sat up tall in my saddle and returned his salute. "We'd be honored to ride with you, Lieutenant," I replied. We changed mounts, bid Carol goodbye and were threading our way down the mountain within fifteen minutes of arriving at the militia camp. Carol gave me a kiss that curled my toes before she departed then placed her lips by my ear. "I'll be in New London in a few days muleskinner. When I get there I expect you to have a night saved for me and the energy to make it worth my while," she whispered. I pulled back and nodded dumbly, all my blood having deserted my brain for points south. We made camp that afternoon beside the same spring-fed pond we'd stopped at just last week on our first trip. This time, there were no distractions to prevent me from exploring the cave above the spring. True, the cave had appeared to be an empty twelve foot by twelve foot room, but something about my remembrance of it tickled my curiosity. I slipped inside the cavern with one of the flameless lanterns I had borrowed from Lieutenant Deming. I took a careful walk around the inside of the cavern and confirmed that the walls had been worked flat with a chisel, judging by the tool marks in the rock. In the far back corner, the odd thing I'd noticed on my first cursory inspection immediately caught my eye again. The dirt floor was slightly mounded in a rectangle about two feet by four feet. The raised area was only about a quarter inch higher than the rest of the floor, but the regular shape was obvious in the bright light of the lantern. I walked over to the slight rise in the floor and cautiously stepped lightly on the edge. I could feel the difference in the ground under my feet but it felt as solid as the rest of the rock floor. I knelt down and brushed the sand off the protrusion with my hand. It only took a couple of swipes to see that I was uncovering a metal plate of some sort. It took me only a couple of minutes to expose the entire rectangle. I sat back on my heels and examined the metal plate under the intense light of the small lantern. It was obvious to me that the metal plate had been colored and etched to match the natural rock floor. I surmised that some force of nature must have heaved the plate upward slightly so that it broke the plane of the floor. I found an indentation at one end of the plate that looked as if it were a handle of sorts. Even though I thought it would be too heavy to lift by myself, I grabbed the handhold, bent my knees, locked my elbows and pushed upright with all the strength my legs could generate. To my great shock, the plate pivoted upward so smooth and effortlessly that all my excess effort sent me flying backward onto my big muley butt. I stood up and rubbed my hind end as I contemplated the now open hatch. I leaned over and shined the light into the inky black darkness, not surprised in the least to see a set of metal stairs leading downward. I knew it was probably unwise to go further into the cavern by myself, but I shrugged and started down the steps anyway. Wise and Jeb Brock were not words often spoken in the same sentence. There were fifteen steps leading down to the next level of the cavern. The steps were narrow but not especially steep. The chamber at the bottom of the stairs was much larger than the room above and yet it showed the same tool marks on the walls. I figured the caverns had once been some sort of mine. I stood at the bottom of the stairs and shined the lantern around the cavern. Amazingly, the chamber I stood in appeared to be the entry hall of a house constructed underground. The walls behind me and to my right were tool gouged rock; the eight foot tall partition walls ahead and to the left were white-washed plaster. There was a door in both the front and left hand wall. I found the first body in a bedroom; it was the second room I entered. The mummified elderly woman was dressed in a white gown and laid out as if for burial on an ornately carved sleigh-bed. I found the second body in a room right off the bedroom that was obviously a man's office. The room had a single bed tucked against one wall; a large desk dominated the center of the space. An elderly man was sitting in a chair slumped over the table. He was also mummified, his skin stretched like dark parchment over his skeleton. Next to his right hand was familiar looking revolver. It was a superiorly made weapon that bore a striking resemblance to my own Colts. Next to the pistol was a leather bound ledger. I left the man in his eternal peace and shined the light around the room. A glass faced gun cabinet immediately reflected the beam from my light. Holding the beam steady on the cabinet, I walked over to it and pulled open the door. Inside the cabinet were a version of a Winchester model 1866 repeating rifle and a beautiful double-barreled fowling piece. Hanging on a hook in the cabinet was a well worn belt with a holster attached to it. A pistol that matched the one on the table was sitting on a shelf above the rifles, along with some gun cleaning supplies and a few tin containers. The contents of the room were very well preserved, even though they had to be hundreds of years old. I had heard of similar discoveries around the gold mines in Colorado when I was a deputy in Boulder. Miners told tales of finding mummies and weapons from the times of the Spanish conquest and even earlier than that. The miners attributed the condition of the bodies and equipment to the low humidity, lack of insects and scavengers, all combined with the cool temperatures found deep in the caves. I started to fret about the amount of time I had been away, so I grabbed the holster rig, both pistols and the journal, then retraced my steps back to the original cave. I climbed off the ledge and made my way to the tent that the militia men had erected for us. I stowed my new treasures and joined Tonya and Sarah under the big willow tree by the pond. The women were sitting on a couple of lightweight metal camping chairs, Sarah gingerly massaging her thighs. "My legs are too short for horseback riding," Sarah complained. Then she looked up and saw me. "Ah-ha and here comes the reason I'm on the back of that evil beast now. Notice how he waltzes in after all the work is done." Sarah could not quite keep a straight face as she nagged at me. Tonya grinned and voiced her agreement. "He's that way all the time. He treats me terribly and then tries to seduce my Mother." Tonya probably had a few more pithy comments ready for me, but she quickly changed the subject when she saw the loot I was carrying. "Where did you get that stuff?" She asked, pointing to the book and the guns. "I found a trap door that led to a second cave up there," I said, point to the little ledge. "Someone went to the trouble of building a house inside the second cave and these things were in it." Both women's eyes lit up with curiosity and Tonya gave a slight nod. "A bomb shelter, probably. They were popular during portions of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries among a segment of society who called themselves Survivalists. The shelters were designed to be a safe haven from nuclear attack," Tonya stated. Then she pointed at the leather covered journal I held in my left hand. "So anyway, what's the book about?" I shrugged and flipped open the cover. "I have not read any of it yet. I'll probably do that later. Right now, I want to go back and explore some more. Want to go with me?" Oh yes, they most certainly did. We informed Lieutenant Deming about our cave exploring plans and both women packed their small knapsacks. Predictably, Sarah took some medical supplies, rations bars and water. Tonya, though, took one of my pistols, a coil of rope and three portable lamps that she claimed ran on stored sunlight. I planned on staking my claim to the cave and its contents, so all I carried was my other pistol and a large empty knapsack. I didn't know what else we might find, but at a minimum I was bringing back the lever action Winchester and the fancy bird-gun. Sarah and Tonya were as fascinated by the house built in a cave as I had been. "This is amazing," Tonya said as she shined the lantern around. "I wonder how they were able to get all these building materials down here." I shrugged my shoulders in the universal sign of stupidity. Everything about the strange cavern baffled me. I mean here were these new looking weapons from probably soon after my original time right next to devices for which I couldn't even guess the purpose. Since everything in the cavern was part of history to Sarah and Tonya, I expected them to fill me in. I made that point as I led them to the bedroom occupied by the female mummy. "When do you reckon this place dates from?" I asked Tonya. She pursed her lips and shined her light around the room as Sarah checked out the long dead corpse on the bed. "I'd say latter half of the twenty-first century. The furnishings and clothes are from a historical period called the Old West Revival. Western Revival was a movement that stressed a return to pre-modern pioneer roots in the face of a world falling to pieces. This simple, sturdy and functional furniture along with the weapons you found are museum quality examples of the period. This stuff is worth a fortune." "Not if we can't get it out of here," I reminded. Sarah checked both bodies and told us what she found. "Without a post mortem, I don't have a clue about the women in their other than it was probably natural causes. The man though, died from a bullet wound to the head, probably self inflicted. I think when she died, he committed suicide. I expect that the journal you found will verify that." I nodded in absent-minded agreement. I had reached about the same conclusion when I was there earlier. The women continued looking around the office and I wandered into the next few rooms. The house was not very large; it had one bedroom, an eat-in kitchen, and only three other rooms. One of the unexplored rooms was a large library with thousands of bound volumes stored in floor to ceiling bookcases. The other was a repair shop of sort. Workbenches along two of the walls held all sorts of parts and equipment with which I was completely unfamiliar. The third wall's workbench I recognized though, because it was a gun-smithy. In my time, I had many occasion to visit gunsmiths so I was familiar with the accoutrements of the trade. The tools and equipment laid out neatly on the bench were recognizable to me because they were for use on the weapons I found in the small 'office'. Weapons that were similar to the ones I carried. The major difference between the pistols was the ammunition. The pistols I found were modified to fire cartridges instead of cap and ball. I had seen a number of the cartridge firing Colts out west. The standard Colt Army 45 caliber pistol was easy to modify; it was finding the ammunition that was difficult. As I shined my lantern around the well worn heavy pine workbench, I could see that wouldn't be a problem for me now. I found a baker's dozen boxes, each holding fifty complete bullets. Plus, there were boxes of hundreds of empty cartridges, ingots of lead and molds for the projectile ball and a couple of presses to join the twain. There were also a number of very large clear glass jars with glass stoppers full of gunpowder. I figured the brass cartridges and the lead balls were still serviceable, but I had my doubts about three hundred year old gunpowder. When the women came wandering into the workshop I proudly showed them my finds. They were not nearly as excited about the bullet making apparatus as I was. Instead, they raved about the library and the (to them) rare antique books. I could not resist asking Tonya about the fire arms. "Tonya, why are you so blasé about finding these weapons? I thought they would cause you some concern; two weeks ago you were calling them instruments of death. Do you think someone will try to take them away from me because of that?" Tonya shook her head and picked up one of the bullets on the table. "Projectile weapons are relics from our distant past, Jeremiah, like swords and spears. They are labor and resource intensive to make and operate compared to what replaced them. Today, it is beyond our ability to mass produce them, even if we had the desire too. We also seldom find any of those type weapons recycle mining because most of them were scrapped in the century following the invention of these." She patted the beam weapon she had slung over her shoulder and continued, "Because of all that, they are not on the list of banned weapons." I left my partially filled knapsack on the gunsmith's table and walked with the women back through the kitchen to the only door we had had not tried. With the women close on my heels, I pushed open the door and stepped through with my lantern in front of me. I took three steps shining the light around in front of me then stopped. The women spilled out of the door, the beams from their lanterns mingling with mine. Our combined lights barely dented the inky void. That was our first clue as to how vast this underground chamber was. Close at hand, though, were rows of shelves laden with all sorts of food in tin cans, mason jars and other containers I could not identify. Off to the left of the shelves was a double door privy. Just beyond the privy, a steady stream of water poured out the back wall and cut across the floor of the cave in a trench about three feet wide. I shined my light along the trench and watched the water disappear in a fissure in the opposite wall. "There is the source of the spring outside," I said. All three of us jumped when my normal speaking voice boomed throughout the chamber. After a good laugh at ourselves, we all tried talking in different voices just to hear the strange echoes. "This place has even better acoustics than the symphony hall at the university," Tonya observed. Right then I sure wished my fiddle was with me instead of with my bedroll at Liz Smith's house. I vowed to my self that the first chance I had, I would return here with it. Heck, why not? After all, I found the place and I was staking my claim to it. If I wanted to caterwaul, who was to say no? We left as soon as Tonya checked out this contraption that was suspended above a swift flowing portion of the underground stream. I made the mistake of asking if she knew what the thing was. Even after she told me, I still did not know a bit more than I did before she started talking. "It's a high-coefficient hydro-kinetic power generator," she said, matter-of-factly. "We use these on a much larger scale to power part of Paradise Valley because you don't have to dam up the river to extract power from the water-flow." Luckily, the women could not see the uncomprehending look on my face as I blustered authoritively, "Of course it is; I see that now." Tonya bobbed her head up and down and continued excitedly, "The man who shot himself kept everything here in really good shape and he pulled the generator from the water before he committed suicide. I don't think it would take an electro-tech long to have this thing working again and have electricity for the house." That was all well and good but living in a cave was not in my plans for the future. When I told Tonya that, she nodded her agreement. "Maybe not," she replied, "but it is a fascinating glimpse of our history. This place is the most complete archeological site I've ever heard of and would make a great museum." Tonya's excited little speech made up my mind about the place. Yes, I would file a claim on the caverns but I was going to share that claim with Queen Elizabeth, the former history professor. Liz would know exactly what to do with the place while, aside from a few books and the items relating to weapons, I had no use for anything here. Out of respect for the dead man, I was also going to pass his journal on to Liz without reading it. The ladies gave me a hand toting my newly acquired ammunition, rifle and gunsmithing equipment. They objected to taking the fancy shotgun, however. "Leave it here, Jeremiah and come back for it later. We've enough to carry without you bringing toys." I conceded the point and started loading my big knapsack. Sarah watched me for a minute then stopped me. "We'll never fit all this stuff if you pack it like that," she said exasperatedly. "Empty it on the table then stack everything you want to take on the table and we'll try to find a place for it all." I gave her a look. After all, moving freight was my business. I did exactly as she said though, because it is a well known scientific fact that any female above the age of twelve can pack twice as much cargo in half the space a man would use. When I hoisted the knapsack after Sarah packed it, I had to stifle a groan. The danged thing weighed a hundred pounds if it weighed an ounce. I shouldered the pack and led the way back to the surface. When we emerged from the lower cavern, I closed the trapdoor and sprinkled some sand around it to disguise its location. I gingerly climbed down the small rock face being careful not to over balance myself with the huge pack. I waited at the bottom, helped the women down and we returned to camp. At supper I had a chat with Lieutenant Deming as we gnawed on the tasteless lumps of sawdust the future folks called nutrabars. For the altered people, the bars were a complete and tasty meal but for those of us that were 'normal' they were less than a snack. I suddenly thought about all the canned food down in the cavern and mentally groaned that I hadn't brought up a single item. Even after sitting for a few hundred years, the contents of the tins and jars could be no worse than the nutrabars. I told the lieutenant that I was laying claim to the cave and a thousand feet of land in every direction. He nodded and wrote the date, my name and the map location of the cave into his journal. He made my claim official with a stroke of his pen, pending a check of deed records in New London. After supper, I talked Sarah and Tonya into joining me up in the first cave so we would have some privacy to celebrate my claim. It did not take much talking as they smile and grabbed up their sleeping mats and bedrolls. I know I am repeating myself here, but the women in the future were amazing in any way you wanted to measure. They were the one hope I had that the distant future might include mankind among the denizens of the earth. In stark contrast, it was almost as if the men of this time were hell bent on driving humanity out of existence. The misguided change to man's basic nature, made in the name of abating his propensity towards aggression, had left them with no drive or vision for the future. Instead of looking to improve the present, most of them were obsessed with trying to change the past. I thought it was insane to want a return to the days that were the cause of the present mess. Liz Smith's vision was much more practical, so I was hitching my team to her wagon. ------- Chapter 24 We rode into New London the next day at noon. We could have made it earlier, but Deming and his men dawdled along all morning. As we neared the edge of town, Deming and his detachment all of a sudden formed up into two parade ground columns, one on either side of Sarah, Tonya and me. Instead of ambling along purposelessly, they now sat high and alert in their saddles. Deming angled the column towards the south end of town, in the direction of the large and well maintained park square that fronted Liz's headquarters, rather than entering town by staying on the main road. Seeing the reaction of Deming and his troops put me on guard. I pulled my John B. down to shade my eyes, switched my reins over to my left hand, and flipped my duster back to expose my new right-hand pistol in its fancy holster. Tonya noticed the change in my demeanor and reined her horse over next to the big mule I was astride. "Something fishy is going on, so stay up on your toes," I warned before she could say anything. Tonya gave me an exasperated look. "We are out of the badlands and almost inside the city. What could happen to us here?" she asked perplexedly. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized I almost made a fool of myself. Of course Deming and his men were going to sit up and look sharp. I should have remembered all soldiers did that when they were headed towards the flagpole. I relaxed and mumbled something, but to save what little pride I had left, I kept my pistol uncovered and my reins in my off-hand. It turns out that we did run into something unusual as soon as we were part way down the broad tree-lined avenue that pierced the center of the park like a Redman's arrow. What we ran into was a fair sized crowd of folks lining both sides of the avenue. I reckoned most of the people living in New London were there. As we rode by, the crowd clapped, cheered and fell in behind us. I was growing more curious by the minute. We continued up the avenue until we reached a raised platform that had been erected on a grassy spot a few dozen yards off the street. Liz Smith was standing on that platform, along with a handful of other men and women. Everyone on the stage was dressed formally; including a man dressed in a military uniform with a star on his collar. Lieutenant Deming halted us in front of the stage and confirmed my suspicions by reporting to the uniformed man. The man on the stage directed Deming to 'take his post', and the mounted soldiers peeled off and returned to the street. I started to turn and depart with them when Tonya stopped me. "Dismount and I'll take your mule, Jeremiah. Liz wants to talk to you," she said. The bad feeling I'd had before returned as I slid out of the saddle and handed her my reins. Why would Liz want to talk to me now, when she obviously had something else going on? As soon as my big feet hit the ground, Liz's assistant Lucy materialized and led me to a set of steps leading onto the stage from the rear. Liz was standing on the bottom step waiting for me. I bowed as gracefully as a lumbering oaf of my size is capable, and she rewarded me with a smile. "It's good to see you again, Jeremiah. I've been told you have completely recovered from your injuries; I am well pleased with that." I nodded in reply and she continued to speak. "You told me last time I saw you that you believed in what I am trying to accomplish, do you still feel that way?" she asked. "More than ever," I replied. She gave me another of those sweet smiles. "Great!" she exclaimed, then the smile faded and she looked deep into my eyes. "Listen, Jeremiah, you have an important role in what I want to accomplish. I need you to trust me and go along with what's about to happen. If you agree to that, I promise I'll tell you everything as soon as we are back at my place." What she asked gave me pause, because I was never one who appreciated surprises. I thought about it for a few seconds as she stood there looking at me expectantly, then made a quick decision. "I trust you, Liz," I said, giving voice to my thoughts. "So have at it." Liz flashed me a delighted smile and grabbed my arm. "All righty then," she said as she tugged me up the stairs. "Let's get this show on the road." We walked up onto the back of the stage. Liz left me there in the care of Lucy as she strode confidently to the front of the stage. A big rousing cheer broke out for her as she fiddled with attaching something to the bodice of the long gingham dress she was wearing. A man wearing muffs over his ears, even though it was a very warm day, gave her a hand signal and she started talking. "Hello citizens, it's a great day in New England today and we have a number of things to celebrate. For starters, we are a sovereign nation in control of our own destiny, instead of a city-state consumed by the past. If you recall, in recognition of our sovereignty, I asked for recommendations for a flag to symbolize our nation. From the large number of entries, this is the design the committee chose." A man and a woman walked out on the stage and unfurled the flag. I almost choked when I saw it, because it was the 'Bonnie Blue', the unofficial flag of the Confederate States of America. The Bonnie Blue was a royal blue rectangle with one large white star centered in the field of blue. The flag originated in South Carolina, and the single star signified that the confederate states were removing their star from the United States flag. The only addition to the New London version was the words 'Unity' above the star and 'Progress' beneath it. The flag was a big hit with the citizens of New London. Liz gave them a few minutes to whoop it up, then she moved the event along. "As you all know, this event is being broadcast to our friends in Paradise Valley. While you were examining the flag, one of the vid-techs informed me that eighty-five percent of the online citizens there are watching this along with you. To those folks, we extend our wish for friendship and peace. And I want to remind them and you that our new flag is a symbol of our commitment to the principle of uniting all of humanity and moving us forward towards a new and better destiny, even if certain members of the Pleiad have circulated the misconception that I suffer from some sort of Megalomania and that all outlanders are criminals or misfits." Liz had to stop talking as the crowd burst into boos and cat calls. She held up her hand for silence and continued after order prevailed. "Of course, neither of those rumors contains even a drop of truth. Yes, I exploited my heritage as a way of rallying people to my cause, but now that we've united, we have an elected parliament who will select a prime minister this week. The prime minister they select will run the government. As it was in the day of my namesake, Elizabeth the Second, I will be the figurehead of our country and serve in any fashion the citizenry deems appropriate." Liz was quite the orator. Her voice was strong and determined and her words inspiring. She stood silent and smiling as the crowd cheered and called her name, then quieted them down again. What she did next was more unbelievable to me than the idea of traveling forward in time. "So, my friends, we have a flag for our country, we have an elected government and we have a figurehead." Liz paused and made a motion for me to join her. I gulped and shambled forward. "What we didn't have until just recently was a hero, a person with a combination of personal courage, training, experience and skill to be our strong right arm as we move forward. We have the Pleiad to thank for reaching back in time and delivering such a man to us." She took my hand as I walked up beside her and turned me to face the crowd. "This is Jeremiah Brock," she said raising my hand, "a man who, until three weeks ago, was a citizen of the state of Wyoming in the wild west of the 1870s. Jeremiah was an officer in the American Civil War and a lawman on the old west frontier. "More importantly for us though, is the fact that he took on and defeated the Juicers that had been plaguing us, and rescued eight innocent citizens in the process. Mister Brock has agreed to continue helping us, both here, and if the citizens of Paradise Valley agree, also back in his own time." Liz had to pause then as the crowd cheered and clapped. When they wound down, Liz continued. "In recognition of his commitment to us, I am appointing Jeremiah First Knight of the Realm. The First Knight will be my advisor on matters that include his areas of expertise." Can you for a minute imagine that? Yet there it was for what remained of the world to see, Jeremiah Brock, uneducated and unrefined muleskinner, kneeling as Elizabeth the Seventh touched a sword to my shoulder. I walked off the stage in a daze and rejoined my smiling friends. Deming escorted us straight to Liz's house from the square as soon as Liz finished speaking. Liz had some sort of speech she was presenting to the citizens of Paradise Valley over the viewing devises everyone but I seemed to have. Deming's troopers offered to secure our mounts for us, but I declined. If I rode an animal, I took care of it. Sarah and Tonya followed my lead. It took us fifteen minutes to square away our mounts and pack mules. It was a long fifteen minutes, though, because the women teased me mercilessly about my knighthood. I had my doubts about being a knight anyway, truth be told. The time I came from was less than a hundred years past our rebellion against the tyranny of the very form of government that I was now serving. Anti-royalty sentiment was still strong in America. I sighed when Tonya finished with her horse and curtsied. "I've completed my task, my Lord," she shamelessly emoted in an atrocious British accent. I tried my damndest to suppress a smile as I nodded sternly. "A passable job, wench, so I'll spare you the cane ... for now. Attend the baggage and report to me when you're done," I commanded imperiously. Tonya stood there stupefied as Sarah giggled. I was much more familiar with the aristocratic British accent, having heard it often back in my time, so my impersonation was much better than hers. Tonya finally caught on to my tease and laughed. "Touché, Sir Mulehead," she said. Liz's mother seemed happy to see Tonya and me again, and made a fuss over us when we walked into the house. I introduced her to Sarah as she led us to the kitchen. Missus Smith commented on how nice it was to meet more unaltered women. It only took a few minutes for her to rustle up a meal of left over roast for us as we sat at the kitchen table. "These are exciting times, Mister Brock, revolutionary in fact. For once I feel as if the human race is bound for something beside languid extinction," Missus Smith said. We all nodded in agreement. "I can't see your daughter letting something like that happen, Mama Smith," I said. "That little sprite is a ball of fire." The afore mentioned 'ball of fire' arrived home two hours later. When she arrived, Sarah, Tonya and I were upstairs in the room I'd stayed in previously. I had showered and dressed in the outfit that Sonja picked up for me the night we went to Pecos Pete's. I loved the heck out of that black shirt with the roses, so I decided to wear it to dinner. My ladies were also dressed nicely in short, brightly colored dresses. Once I had gotten past the shock of seeing so much leg exposed, I became a big fan of those knee-length frocks. Dinner was a lively affair. I thoroughly enjoyed being the only male at the table. We ate in the dining room. Lucy joined us, so we sat, three on a side, at the large table for twelve. Liz, Lucy and Missus Smith sat on one side and I, flanked by Sarah and Tonya, sat opposite them. As Missus Smith had alluded, much had happened while I was escaping the clutches of Doctor Mendoza and the Pleiad. As a matter of fact, some of what happened was a direct result of me jumping ship. Lucy actually told the story with Liz clarifying some points for us. In a nutshell, here is what happened in the three days I was on the run. ------- It turns out that the vote of no confidence directed towards the Pleiad was prevented from occurring when Chairman Bearclaw invoked a state of emergency. Bearclaw claimed that Liz Smith and the outlanders were secretly behind the Juicer plot. He also inferred that I was a part of the plot. He asserted that I'd been captured by the outlanders and altered somehow so that I was a grave danger to the populace. To support his assertion, he waved about, and read excerpts from a medical report about my supposedly enhanced body that he'd received from the ill-willed Doctor Mendez. Bearclaw requested thirty days of emergency power to deal with the 'crisis'. The rest of the Pleiad split three-three, so Bearclaw ended up casting the deciding vote. You can guess how he voted. There was grumbling among the citizenry, but the declaration of a state of emergency was legal, so they accepted it. Bearclaw had moved swiftly after that to round up those he claimed to be outlander agents. The arrests even included a couple of members of the Pleiad and three of the counselors in waiting. I was most disturbed to find out that Helena and Coleen were both under house arrest and that Tonya's mother, Carol, had barely avoided capture. I was cheered somewhat when I found out that Sonja was with Carol, and that they should arrive in New London the next day. According to Liz, all of Bearclaw's machinations were designed to maintain the status quo. The council chairman was maneuvering to keep the old altered males in power so they could pursue their agenda of trying to change history. The problem they faced was a citizenry that was starting to lean in the direction that Liz advocated. Bearclaw had surrounded the university medical complex with guards, and was allowing no one entry. In addition, groups of men loyal to the old guard fanned out to round up citizens who overtly supported Queen Elizabeth VII. Liz summed things up for me. "We must do something, Jeremiah, or a lot of good people will be harmed. The Pleiad has shut down the Medscan units and rejuvimatrix for anyone not supporting him. I have moved a couple of mobile Medscans to the frontier, but our technology is not on par with Paradise University's. Even worse, we've heard that Mendez is lobbying for psychological reorientation of their prisoners." I was right with Liz up to 'psychological reorientation'. She saw my perplexed look and explained. "Mendez wants to disrupt the prisoners' minds by removing their free will. They will still be functional, but they will be devoid of personality and easy to manipulate. A crude form of the technique was used in the mid-twentieth century as a 'cure' for mental illness." Lucy and Liz's briefing shocked Tonya and Sarah, but I had a totally different reaction to it. It made me madder than a hornet. Every bad thought I'd had about Mendez, and to a smaller extent Bearclaw, was coming true with a vengeance. I controlled my anger though, sat back in my chair and exhaled through my pursed lips. Bearclaw and his cronies were even more conniving than I had thought. I was not about to let this stand. "I assume you have a way to smuggle me into Paradise Valley without alerting Bearclaw and his minions, so plan on doing that tomorrow night. I need any plans and drawings of the medical complex you can dig up, and information about security and patrols around it. We need to find a way for me to sneak in there pronto. I also will need one of those coats that the Juicers wore to disrupt the energy beam weapons." For me, the conversation was over as soon as I listed my requirements, but the women were not about to drop the subject. "What are you planning to do, Jeremiah?" Liz asked. I gave her a hard look and told her the exact truth. "I am going to set my friends free, create some vacancies on the Pleiad, and permanently end Mendez's medical career," I replied. Given the abhorrence to violence that was ingrained in Earth's survivors, I expected resistance to my idea. That was not the case, however, as Tonya spoke up immediately. "Count me in, and if I go, you won't need blue prints. I worked security there for three years, so I know a couple of ways into the complex that aren't usually guarded. Oh yeah, and I also know how to defeat the video surveillance equipment." she said. "You know you'll need me there too," Lucy added. "You'll need someone you can trust behind you." I looked at both women and nodded. They had both proven themselves under fire. It made me feel better knowing that the only people with combat experience within a thousand miles of New London were with me. I turned my attention back to Liz. "There you go, Elizabeth. We have a team and maybe a way in, so all we need now is a ride. What do you say?" Liz regarded me for a few seconds and then gave me a small smile and an affirmative nod. "We'll continue to try to solve this diplomatically until midnight tomorrow. If that doesn't work, we'll do it your way," she said. Then she shook her head as if in disbelief and gave a small laugh. "Until I met you, I only knew abstractly what our society was missing as a result of altering our males. I can tell you that no one, in or out of the valley, will expect you to beard the lion in his den," she said. I was not comfortable with the comparison to Daniel in the Biblical lion's den, but I was happy she was backing my move. The dinner dishes were cleared away and all the women except Liz migrated into the kitchen to clean up after the meal. Liz and I were still at the table, her with a cup of tea, me with a terrific cup of coffee. The Queen of New England regarded me over the rim of her cup, her cornflower blue eyes unreadable. She sat the cup down with a sigh, then leaned back in her chair. I thought she was still considering what to do about the Pleiad; of course, no one had ever been crazy enough to pay me to think. "Do you think I'm attractive?" she asked out of the blue. "I think you are very pretty," I answered honestly. She smiled slightly at that. "I mean sexually attractive," she clarified. I blushed when she said that, because I thought I was keeping my lustful thoughts about her well hidden. Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound. I looked her in the eye and told her how I felt. "Very," I replied. "I have wanted you from the minute we met, but I also respect you, so you do not have to worry about me." She smiled, stood up and held out her hand. "I'd only be worried if the opposite was true, Jeremiah," she said with an impish smile. As slow as I am mentally, I still understood the invitation in her voice and actions. I uncoiled myself out of my chair and stalked around the table. I ignored her proffered hand and swept her up in my arms. Her lips were sweet and yielding, but her kiss was tentative and inexperienced. She closed her eyes and moaned as I pried open her lips with my tongue. That kiss incited a lust in me I can not remember feeling before. She broke the kiss and wriggled out of my arms. "Bedroom," she panted urgently as she grabbed my hand and literally dragged me out of the dining room. Liz was a completely captivating combination of innocence and unbridled lust. She was shy and demure as I undressed her, but once I had her naked in bed, she turned into a wanton hellion. Liz liked it rough; the more forceful I was with her, the better she liked it. At one point, her hands pinned to the mattress and her slender legs over her shoulders, she climaxed so hard she drenched the bed with her juices and fainted dead away. She was also tireless and would not accept my complaints that I was finished for the night. She resurrected Johnny Reb more times than I thought possible, and was still eager for more when he finally surrendered. She fell asleep on top of me, finally, with wilted Johnny still inside her. Three hours later, I woke up with her riding me once again. I groaned in mock complaint as she smiled down on me sweetly. "I know you are tired, Sir Knight, so just lay there and I'll do all the work," she said. The next time I awoke, it was to sunlight streaming through the windows and I was alone in bed. I jumped out of bed when I saw the time on the bedside clock. It was after nine in the morning, the latest I'd slept in years. I stretched the kinks out of my muscles and looked down at my wilted member; neither of us had ever been worked that hard before. I shook my head and rushed into the bathroom adjoining Liz's boudoir, so Johnny Reb could perform the only function Liz had left him capable of. I showered, dressed and wandered downstairs to the kitchen, hoping that I could scout out some leftovers for breakfast. After my night with the Queen of New England, I was famished. Missus Smith was puttering around in the kitchen when I eased through the door. I was embarrassed running into her after spending the night ravishing her daughter. She did not make things easier for me when she gave me a wicked grin and sly wink. "I won't ask if you had a good night, because my daughter's screaming kept everyone awake," she teased. My ears were on fire as she sat me at the table and turned to the stove. In addition to being tireless, when Liz was in the throes of passion, she was also very loud. I quickly changed the subject. "Where is everyone?" I asked. "Lucy and your other women are setting up secreting you into the valley. My daughter is busy plotting some kind of Coup to go along with your trip tonight. As soon as you eat, you need to meet them at the square," she said. I nodded and gratefully thanked her for the fried egg sandwiches and steaming cup of coffee she plunked down in front of me. I wolfed down the sandwiches, guzzled the coffee and bolted up to my room to retrieve my shooting irons. I unloaded both pistols and the repeating rifle, dropped the cartridges in my saddle bags, slung the saddle bags and holster rig over my shoulder, picked up the finely crafted rifle and high-tailed it to the square. Everyone was waiting for me, standing around one of the mobile mediscan units when I came trotting into the square. Lucy, Tonya and Sarah were dressed in the now familiar garb of medical personnel. I was braced for some serious teasing, so I was pleasantly surprised when I received four nice kisses instead. The only comment I had to endure was Lucy's observation that she was amazed that I could still jog after what she heard last night. The other women piled into the large coach, leaving me alone with Liz. Liz hugged me firmly and whispered into my ear. "Be safe, my knight in shining armor," she said. ------- Chapter 25 We pulled out of New London at noon with Tonya driving the big coach. Tonya steered the big machine effortlessly, and for the first time since I met her, she did not try to scare me to death. She stuck her tongue out at me when I commented on how responsibly she was driving for a change. I had Tonya stop the coach about five miles outside of New London so that I could test fire my new weapons. Even though the ammunition had been stored in ideal conditions, I was not sure if it would still function properly. I had my old pistols in my saddle bags, just in case. I fired a couple of random rounds from each weapon, and was pleasantly surprise that not only did the ammunition fire, the pistols shot true to my aim. The rifle was outstandingly accurate for a carbine; I reckoned it was accurate out to four or five hundred yards, more than enough for right now. We had been on the road for an hour when we passed a couple of covered drays. Each of the big wagons was being pulled by a four hitch of large mules. The wagons had wooden bodies and canvas tops, but the under-pinnings were more like the coach in which I was currently riding. The balloon wheels and solid steel fully-sprung axels seemed to roll easier and smoother than the iron rimmed wood wheels of my time. I suffered a bout of homesickness as we went by them. "You are looking at the real coin-of-the-realm, Jeb," Lucy remarked as I stared at the freight wagons. "We New Londoners operate nine salvage mines and sorting centers and we are actively scouting out new locations as the residual radiation from the war dissipates. Liz established a distribution warehouse system we use to quickly find items to fill orders we receive from Paradise Valley and Casadega. Since the valley is pretty well mined out, we supply most of the materials they use. Scavenger mining is a tough and sometimes dangerous job, so the valley dwellers are happy to leave it to us. We even fund a research facility there to find more uses for what we mine. "Liz has been very good to and for the citizens of the valley, even though Bearclaw's isolationist faction is loath to admit it. As more people leave the valley and Casadega to join us, we are starting our own manufacturing base. The citizens of the valley aren't blind to the fact that we are passing them by because their leaders are so preoccupied with the past. It is only a matter of time until they join us." I nodded at her remarks and watched the wagons as they disappeared behind us. I absorbed what Lucy had said, and it made a strange sort of sense to me, so I guess I was starting to understand these future folks better. But what really struck me were the wagons and mules eating our dust. Because what better exemplified the strangeness of this future world than wagons nearly identical to ones I drove six hundred years in the past? That those wagons were carrying things that were relics from between my time and this one that were beyond the ability of either, made the situation even stranger. Five miles from the check point that straddled the road down into the valley, Lucy opened up a compartment in the bottom of the mediscan table and I folded myself inside it. The floor of the compartment was padded with some sort of cushiony material. It was obvious that I wasn't the first person to travel concealed there. Lucy answered my unasked question. "We have used this unit to smuggle people in and out of the valley for over a year now. The guards at the check point usually just wave us through anyway," she said. As I was contorting my big lumpy body into the compartment, I noticed Tonya putting on a blond wig. She was also wearing a pair of those spectacles with smoky colored lenses that the future men favored. Being seated and wearing the loose blue meditech outfit disguised her size. Even if you knew her, it would have been hard to tell it was Tonya. The guards at the checkpoint did stop and board us, but it was only a cursory inspection. Lucy explained to the checkpoint commander that Queen Elizabeth had sent the unit to help with any emergencies until the university medical units were available again. The commander actually thanked her for helping in their time of need as Tonya eased the coach into the valley. Lucy helped me uncoil from under the mediscan table ten minutes or so past the check point. I kept myself away from the windows by relaxing on one of the collapsible rolling cots with which the coach was equipped. Being on the coach as it moved deeper into the valley reminded me a great deal of my time as a raider with the Army of Northern Virginia. JC and I had made a number of forays behind the Union lines in just this manner; we simply drove our wagons as if we belonged where ever we were. I was not surprised in the least that the same tactic worked here in the future, because these future folks were even more unsuspecting than the Yankees in Maryland had been. The future men thought their numbers and advanced society made them impervious to attack. We pulled into Paradise City at a few minutes after four in the afternoon. Lucy directed Tonya onto a side street less than a mile from the university, and we hid in plain sight in a shaded parking lot. I choked down one of the ration bars for supper and chased it with a slug of water. I checked my weapons one last time, then sacked out on the cot. I planned on napping until it was dark enough for our purposes and like all good soldiers, I could fall asleep any place and any time I wanted. Sarah gently woke me up at seven-thirty. It was full dark by then. The women had changed out of the medtech uniforms into the black trousers and colored tunics that the university staff wore. I remained dressed in my normal clothing with the addition of the mesh garment that defused the beam weapons that I had stitched to the inside of my cotton duster. While I was sleeping, Tonya had come up with a plan to get us inside the fortress-like main university building. It was a simple and audacious plan of the sort I preferred. What Tonya proposed was taking me to one of the back entrances to the building as if I were her prisoner. I saw one big drawback to her idea. "Doing that might well mark you as a traitor, even if we succeed," I commented. Tonya waved her hand dismissively. "I'll take my chances," she replied. Before I could say anything else, my attention was distracted by a commotion coming from the street that ran past our parking place. I cautiously peeked out the window and saw a milling throng of citizens moving down the street in the direction of the university. When I gave Lucy an inquiring look, she shot me a big smile. "Liz thought a diversion might help, so she planted the seeds for a protest vigil to happen at eight tonight in front of the university. As you can see by how many people are out there, the citizens of the valley are waking up to the fact that Bearclaw and the old guard are stealing their chance for a better future." I nodded absentmindedly as I watched the people stream by us. There were even more folks in the crowd than were at Liz's speech yesterday. As soon as the bulk of the crowd passed us, Lucy smoothly maneuvered the medical coach in behind them. Sarah commented that it appeared natural to have medical coverage at such a large gathering, and that they would probably actually have to treat a few of the protesters before the night was over. Lucy steered into an unlit alleyway two blocks from the main campus building so Tonya and I could jump out. She and Sarah admonished us to be careful, then drove away as Tonya and I slipped into the inky night. Tonya led the way through a labyrinth of narrow alleys that wove their way between large warehouses. I commented to Tonya that it was a part of the city I had not seen before. "These buildings are where the grunt work happens that is needed to keep the research laboratories functioning. Marvels like the mediscan are created here from two and three hundred year old reclaimed electronic components. That building over there is the foundry where recycled metals are recovered and that one houses the biomass incinerators that provide power to the electric grid. We find a use for ninety-five percent of the materials recovered from the landfill mines." Even though Tonya was whispering, the pride was evident in her voice. We traveled the next quarter mile in silence as we skirted around the warehouse section and approached the rear of the large central university building. Tonya's plan was to boldly walk into the large paved parking area behind the building and march right up to the security door. My hands would be loosely bound behind my back by some sort of smooth cable that she had sawed mostly through with my pig sticker. I would pretend to be restrained until I saw an opening I could exploit. Tonya had my holsters and pistols slung over her shoulder for me to grab, once I was free. I had also secreted one of the new style Colts in the waist band of my trousers and covered by my duster earlier when no one was looking. I did that out of cautious habit, I hated the helpless feeling being unarmed gave me. Like my mama always said, 'better safe than sorry'. "Here we go," Tonya whispered as we approached the parking area. "Act your part, Jeb, because there are video cameras covering this lot." I trudged along in my best prisoner imitation as Tonya walked a few steps behind me, covering me with her stunner. When we reached the door, she had me lay spread-eagle on the concrete while she pressed a button by the door. I could hear the whir of the video cameras as they zeroed in on us. I thought Tonya was gilding the lily by treating me so cavalierly, but it must have impressed her old compatriots, because after a brief exchange, the door swung open and two guards stepped out. The man and woman unceremoniously yanked me to a standing position and frog marched me into the building. I recognized the woman as the agent that had been with Tonya when I first met her, but the man was new to me. The guards were none too gentle with me, but we were now inside the enemy camp. They forced me down into a chair and both of them hovered over me. In briefing me on what to expect, Tonya had described the room just inside the door as the 'Security Center'. Except for the moving picture devices, it was pretty much just like every marshal's office I had ever visited, right down to the pair of battered desks. Besides the two agents who dragged me into the room, there was an older man at a console not unlike the one in a mediscan unit. The man was the largest future person I'd seen to date, as he was easily three inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than me. Tonya sat in a chair next to him and regurgitated the story she had prepared to account for us being there. Tonya was almost as good a dissembler as my friend JC Colbert. Tonya related to the Security Commander that I had forced her to aide in my escape from the university, and she'd been my prisoner until she'd managed to turn the tables on me when I tried to rape her last night after Liz knighted me. She said she stole one of the horseless vehicles, drove it to the valley rim and abandoned it at one of the high passes. She claimed she did not alert anyone because she did not know who she could trust outside the university. Her story struck just the right chord with the commander as he believed Doctor Mendez's hogwash that I was no better than an animal because I was unaltered. Tonya lied so well that I even started to doubt my motives. The commander heard her out then picked up a vidcom and called the Council Chambers. He spoke with someone for a minute then turned to Tonya. "Good job Lawson, We'll take it from here. Bearclaw wants him taken to the Pleiad Chamber immediately so he can announce the capture to the public. I knew that Smith was lying through her teeth yesterday when she called this caveman a hero. Your story will erase any doubts about what manner of creature he really is," the commander said. Tonya nodded and aimed a nasty glare in my direction. "You deserve anything that happens now, you animal," she snarled at me. Never one to refuse a challenge, I played the villain to the hilt. I gave an evil laugh. "You know you loved every minute of it, heifer," I said menacingly. Tonya jumped up as if she was going to attack me, but her old partner stepped between us. The commander ordered Tonya to compose herself, ordered me onto my feet and turned to Tonya's old partner. "Sellars, you monitor the security feeds. Pay particular attention to the crowd out front to see if you can identify their leaders." The woman nodded and slipped into the chair in front of the picture machines. The commander led the way out into the corridor and set off towards the Pleiad's chamber. Tonya and the commander remained in front with the other agent a few steps behind me. As we clopped down the deserted hallway, Tonya quizzed the security commander about events she had missed over the last three days. My ears perked up when he mentioned people about whom I was interested. "Doctor O'Neil (Coleen) and Professor Thompson (Helena) are still working, but they are not allowed to leave the building right now. We couldn't take a chance that they might assist the creature they brought back from the past. They are staying in one of the quarantine suites until Doctor Mendez has the time to readjust their personalities to undo whatever that animal did to them. Administrator Ferrens (Sonya) has disappeared and is probably in the outlands. If she returns, she'll need realignment also. "So far, we have questioned a dozen people, including three members of the Pleiad, using Doctor Mendez's truth serum. As a result of those interrogations, we have detained a couple of dozen additional citizens that were working for the outlander's cause." I knew the security man's low opinion of me was based on what he'd been told by Mendez ... still it roiled my anger. Doctor Mendez and I were going to have it out, mano-a-mano as soon as I dealt with Bearclaw. I clamped down on my ire and stayed alert to my surroundings. I knew that the Pleiad's chambers were on the second floor in the front of the building overlooking the park, so we had a hike in front of us. I was completely lost after the first couple of turns we took. Reading the numbers on the widely spaced doors did not help in that regard, and the only directional sign we passed was no help at all. About the only thing of comfort for me were the lighted arrows with the word 'EXIT'. I might not be able to find anything in the building, but at least I knew the way out. We finally reached the stairs leading up to the Pleiad's portion of the building and climbed them to the second floor anteroom right outside the chambers. The nervous young man that manned the desk outside the chambers was still at his post and even more agitated than usual. He was busy packing items from his desk into a box of some sort. Instead of waving us into the chamber, he stopped the security chief to register a complaint. "Commander Greer, I'm officially informing you that as of this minute, I resign my position. I am a civil servant, and I would be committing a crime if I were to stay here and be involved in any of this. For the record, I believe what your party is doing is highly illegal and I will be reporting that to the civil service commission tomorrow." Greer looked at the man for a second then gave him a tight smile and an exasperated snort. "I thought you were one of us, Fletcher, and not some whiny bureaucrat." Then Greer turned to the guard behind me. "Escort Citizen Fletcher down to holding room two until we can sort out his involvement in all this, then join the detail down at the front entrance. Lawson and I will handle the savage." The guard saluted and grabbed Fletcher's arm. Fletcher protested loud and long as the big agent marched him out of the room. Tonya gave the commander an inquisitive raised eye brow at what had transpired, but didn't protest his action. Greer noted that and gave her an approving smile as he touched her arm familiarly. "I told Chairman Bearclaw you were loyal to us and not to worry when you turned up missing. When I told him you were working undercover to gain the creature's trust, he was most amused and delighted." Greer was looking at me with a smirk as he said that. His lips curled into a smile as the shock I could not hide flashed across my face. I looked at Tonya; she stared back at me defiantly. Greer chuckled and gestured towards the door with his stunner. "After you, Mister Brock, Chairman Bearclaw and especially Doctor Mendez are eagerly awaiting your arrival," he said smugly. My thoughts were in turmoil as I shuffled towards the door that Tonya pulled open for me. I looked at her face closely as I approached the door, but her expression was blandly neutral. I had known from the first that Tonya had been assigned to watch me; that she could have also been tasked to gain my confidence was the shocker. To discover that she might have double-crossed me so thoroughly, and in the process uncovered much of Liz's plans, left me stunned. My feeling of unease was not abated by the hostile faces of the men sitting around the u-shaped table, or by the two armed guards flanking the inside of the double doors. Greer pushed me into the cup of the 'U' so that I was face-to-face with Bearclaw and Mendez who sat side-by-side at the center of the table. I glanced around the table and noticed three faces that had not been there when I last spoke to the Pleiad. I surmised that Bearclaw had elevated three council members loyal to him to replace the three members of the Pleiad that were under arrest. "So nice of you to join us Mister Brock," Bearclaw said sarcastically. "You are just in time to help end this foolishness that the Smith woman has stirred up." I was in a bad position to make my play because Tonya was behind me with her stunner and my pistols and I now had doubts about where her allegiance lay. With that in mind, I engaged Bearclaw in conversation as I edged my body around so I could see Tonya and Greer. "I am no threat to you, Chairman Bearclaw, all I want to do is either return to my time or find some job out in the badlands," I said sincerely. Mendez snorted and pointed his finger at me. "Everything about you is a threat to our civilization, Brock, from your mutant genetics to your disdain for our culture. We don't want you here, and sending you back could make unwanted changes in the timeline." Even as grave as my current situation was, I had to laugh at what Mendez said. "My existence here is only a threat to you because I am a fully functioning man, and as such, I will find a way to survive and make life better for me and mine. As for changing the past, how could I possibly do anything that would make things worse than they are now?" Mendez sputtered for a second then shot me an evil grin. He avoided answering my question; instead he voiced my worst fear. "There might be a way for even a savage like you to serve us, though. Because underdeveloped as you are mentally and emotionally, physically you possess genetic material that could well benefit us. We would need to do extensive research on you to discover that." Before I could say anything else, two of Bearclaw's assistants came bustling through a side door. One of the aides was carrying a folded tripod over her shoulder; the other had one of the shiny silver valises in his hand. The woman with the tripod looked inquiringly at Bearclaw and he pointed to a spot to my left. "Set the camera up so it covers the entire table, but centered on me," he ordered. The woman nodded and unfolded the tripod at the place he indicated. The man opened the valise, took out a device that looked much like a spyglass and mounted it to the tripod. He fiddled with the device, aiming it towards the table, then walked over to Bearclaw and handed him a small, flat, black box with buttons on it. "I have the camera feeding directly to the L-E-D screen on the front of the building that we use for public concerts. You can turn the camera on and off with this controller. If the red light is lit, you are broadcasting," the man said. Bearclaw nodded and dismissed the man and woman before turning his attention back to Mendez. "You'll get your chance with him Doctor, all in good time. Right now, having Brock in our custody will help quiet the citizens gathering outside." I was in a position where I could see Tonya Greer and both guards at the door. Since everyone was watching either Bearclaw or the camera, I made my play. I figured the only one in the room I could depend on was Mister Colt. I flexed my arms and pulled hard against the strap binding my wrists, trying not to draw attention to me. I had a moment of panic before the strap broke and dropped to the floor. I had been wriggling my fingers so my hands were not numbed when I swiftly shoved my hand through the gap in my duster and yanked the pistol out of my belt. "Nobody move a muscle!" I yelled as the pistol cleared the constriction of the duster. Everyone froze for a few heartbeats when the pistol cleared the flap of my duster, their eyes large and focused on me. Then the room exploded into action. I saw Tonya raise her weapon, Greer bring his up from his side and the guards by the door reach for theirs. I started to swing my weapon towards the guards at the door when my body convulsed as a jolt from someone's stunner hit me. Tingles raced through me and my pistol slipped from my suddenly lifeless fingers. As I fell to my knees, the air sizzled and crackled with the energy from a barrage of stunners firing at once. ------- Chapter 26 When my knees hit the floor, I instinctively pitched forward onto my stomach and grabbed the pistol I dropped. The metallic mesh coat I wore under my duster had done its job in diffusing the energy from the stunner. The energy blast had given me a good jolt and set my skin to tingling, but I regained control of my muscles and my facilities almost immediately. From initially pulling my pistol to hitting the floor, it had probably taken only a couple of seconds. Falling face first to the floor allowed me to see under the heavy table where Bearclaw and Mendes sat. I was unsurprised that Mendez held a large stunner in his lap, pointed in my direction. I realized that it was Mendez who'd fired the stunner at me, so I returned the favor and put a 45-caliber slug in his foot. Mendez screamed and pitched backwards out of his chair with a thud. The stunner fell out of his hand and clattered across the tiled floor. I had no sympathy for the man as he lay there moaning piteously. He was supposed to be a doctor, a follower of the Hippocratic Oath, yet from day one he had planned to do me harm. He was now reaping what he had sown. As soon as I fired, I rolled to my left, scrambled under the table and out the other side. I rolled left because it put me under the furthest table from the guards at the door and now all the council members were in front of me. I needed to be cautious, because according to Tonya, the mesh coat I was wearing would need five minutes to completely dissipate the charge it had absorbed before it would be effective again. The room was now a frozen tableau, as everyone seemed in shock over what I'd done. To my right, both Tonya and Greer were on the floor unconscious. The two guards by the door were staring at Mendez, their weapons hanging limply in their hands. Bearclaw and the other members of the Pleiad were cowering in their chairs looking fearfully at me. I pointed my pistol at the two guards and pulled back the hammer. The metallic click of the hammer tang engaging the trigger sere echoed loudly in the quiet room. "You two by the door better drop your weapons, or you'll join Mendez," I barked. They complied immediately and I waved them away from their weapons with a twitch of the gun barrel. I rose to my feet and had all the council members stand up with their hands over their heads. When they were on their feet, I herded them over with the guards. By the time the councilors were lined up against the wall, Chairman Bearclaw had regained his composure. When he started to bluster and threaten me, I swung my pistol up and pointed it at his chest. As I brought the weapon to bear, the Pleiad member on either side of him shied away. "I am a desperate man with nothing to lose, Bearclaw, and I hold you totally responsible for that. You are only marginally worth more to me alive, so mind your manners," I growled threateningly. Bearclaw held up a placating hand, but he kept his mouth shut tight. I knelt beside Tonya then, and unclipped the small communicator from her pocket. I activated the device by saying Sarah's name into it. The instrument emitted a few strange noises, but soon enough, Sarah's sweet face filled the little picture frame on the front of the communicator. I made a large effort at keeping my voice calm and steady as I explained the situation to her. Sarah relayed the information to Lucy, who was speaking on her own communicator to Queen Elizabeth. After some back and forth, Sarah told me to stand fast, as help was on the way. After telling Sarah goodbye, I retrieved my other six guns from Tonya's haversack, stuffed the stunners I'd collected into it, and slung the bag over my shoulder. Then I strapped on the holster rig and walked over to check on Mendez. As soon as he saw me standing over him, Mendez started cussing me for all he was worth. He was sitting with his back against the wall by then, gingerly trying to remove his shoe. Mendez was pallid from shock, and bleeding right smartly. He'd live though, and with the medical care here in the future, he would probably be good as new in a few days. Not that it mattered to me, because I thought a little suffering was what someone as evil as he needed. Help arrived ten minutes later in the form of Coleen and Helena. Coleen had her doctor's satchel with her, and after hugging my neck, she knelt down and treated Mendez's wound. Helena also hugged me, but she held me tighter and sighed. "I seldom see you anymore, Jeremiah, and I miss you," she said softly. Helena was the quietest and most reserved of the three future women who went back to my time, but her passion flared the hottest. She was also a brilliant scientist; her intellect both awed and slightly intimidated me. "I have missed you too. After this business with Bearclaw is settled, I would love to spend some time together, just the two of us," I replied. She smiled and nodded her agreement. I dug one of the smaller stunners out of Tonya's bag and handed it to Helena. "Help me keep an eye on everyone, please. If anyone makes a threatening move, blast them," I instructed. Helena looked at the stunner distastefully, but bobbed her head and took it. Coleen gave Mendez an injection for his pain and he quieted down immediately. She dressed what I considered a mild wound then moved over to Tonya and revived her. In only a few minutes, Tonya was sitting up, groggy but conscious. I kept a wary eye on her, because the only person in the room who had given me no reason to doubt them was Helena. And with Helena there, I decided that all things being equal, now was the time to capitalize on my holding a strong hand. "Helena, do you know how to operate the machine that brought me here?" I asked. Helena nodded affirmatively. Helena was a smart woman and knew where I was headed. She was also about the only woman I had met here in the future who was not involved in some scheme that concerned me. "The process is computer-controlled, Jeb, and I know for a fact that it is still calibrated to the cave back in your time." Before I could comment on that, one of the doors to the chamber swung open and Sonja marched into the room. I watched her suspiciously as she entered, because last I heard, she was supposedly on the lam with Tonya's mother, but who knows, that might have been some sort of trick. Intrigue and double-dealing seemed to be the normal behavior of the valley people. "Show me your hands, Sonja," I demanded. Sonja's face went through a gauntlet of emotions at my barked request. Surprise and confusion flickered across her countenance before she sighed resignedly and raised her hands, palms towards me. "I'm not your enemy, Jeremiah," she said reproachfully. "I am not sure who is who anymore, Sonja, so I am disinclined to trust anyone." Sonja looked pointedly at Helena, who was holding one of the guard's standard-size stunners. I ignored the obvious question in her look. By this point, my patience was wearing thin. "State your business, or leave," I said. Sonja looked at me as if I were some stubborn child. "All of this is my business, Jeremiah Brock," she said peevishly. "As a member of the civil service, I work directly for the citizens of the valley. I might report to the Pleiad, but I answer to the Civil Service Commission. We administrators are educated and trained to advise the councilors on all aspects of government. Which begs the question of where is Noah Fletcher? It is highly irregular for the Pleiad to meet without an administrator present." By the time Sonja finished her little tirade, I was red faced with embarrassment. Here I thought she was Bearclaw's lackey, and it turns out she was some sort of honest broker. Still, I didn't know that before, and she had been awfully chummy with the council chairman. I could, however, clear up her question about Mister Fletcher. "Commander Greer had Fletcher hauled off to the hoosegow for something or other; maybe Tonya can clear that up for you," I said helpfully. Sonja finally started looking around when I mentioned Tonya. Her eyes widened as she took in the sight of Mendez with his bloody foot, the unconscious Greer sprawled out on the floor and Coleen busily fussing over a slowly reviving Tonya. Sonja shot me a hard look and I just shrugged. "I only shot Mendez after he shot me first. I think Tonya shot Greer and the Guards shot her." It took a couple of minutes for Tonya to feel normal enough to talk. As soon as she was lucid, she, Coleen, Sonja and Helena started whispering. I let them talk because I held a 45 caliber veto to any plan I didn't like. After three weeks of being pulled from pillar to post here in this future, I was not about to relinquish the upper hand. The women finished their little confabulation and Sonja flipped open her vid-phone. She glanced up at me when I cleared my throat. She sighed and turned her attention towards me. "Listen, Jeremiah, I'm calling down to security to have Noah Fletcher brought back up here, along with the three councilors Bearclaw had arrested. I'm also going to have the video techs come record everything that happens. My priority is to get our government working again. As soon as that's done, we'll address your issues," she patiently explained. I nodded, fair enough. Bearclaw started objecting when Sonja took charge. "You are seriously overstepping your authority, Miss Ferrens. I am still the legally appointed head of the government," he spouted. Sonja shrugged her shoulders. "My function as an administrator is to keep the government operating smoothly, and right now, it's doing everything but ... thanks to you and Mister Brock. Besides, everything will be on the record, so the Civil Service Commission can decide if I acted appropriately." Bearclaw wanted to argue the point, but I waved away his objections with the five inch barrel of my Colt. "Get on with it," I said. Ten minutes later, Fletcher was escorted into the room by Agent Habib, Tonya's partner from the time of my arrival. I relieved Habib of her stunner then Tonya took her and the two other security men off to the side, while Fletcher and Sonja conducted a brief but animated discussion. Fletcher ducked out into the anteroom to retrieve his computing machine as Sonja busied herself rearranging table and chairs. I backed up into a corner so I could keep everyone in front of me. After speaking with the other security agents for a couple of minutes, Tonya walked over to me. "Give me our stunners and we'll help you watch this lot. I'll vouch for my troops," she said. I looked her in the eye and said, "After hearing you talk to Greer, I am not sure I trust you to vouch for anything." She returned my look without blinking. "When we were in New London the first time, Liz smith told Sonja some disturbing news about the Pleiad. Sonja didn't want to believe it, that's why she left us and headed back to the valley. Once she was over the worst of her trauma from being captured by the Juicers, she set out to find out about the scheme for herself. Since she knew Greer is one of Bearclaw's chief allies, she suggested I make a show of allying myself with Greer. Letting him think I was acting on his behalf gave me much more latitude than I'd have gotten as just your escort. His thinking I was with him is why pretending to bring you in worked so well." Then she grinned. "But you suspected something like that already, or you wouldn't have trusted me to take him out when you made your move." I returned her smile and handed over her haversack. "I had a moment's doubt when I was frog-marching behind you two on the way here, but we were soldiers in combat together, and you were willing to die with me instead of escaping when the Juicers had me dead to rights. How could I not trust you?" ------- It took an additional ten minutes for the moving picture cameras to be set up and the councilors under house arrest to arrive. By the time everyone was present and everything in place, it was almost nine at night, and we had been at our intrigues for the better part of two hours. Sonja finally had everyone situated. Mendez was laid out on a divan and Greer, the security commander, was still unconscious and sprawled on the floor next to the wounded doctor. The security personnel were spaced about the room, keeping an eye on everyone while Tonya and I were standing over Sonja's shoulder. Sonja and Fletcher now occupied the seats where Mendez and Bearclaw were when I arrived, the recently released council members sat down one side of the 'U', while Coleen and Helena sat down at the other. Bearclaw and the rest of the Pleiad were sitting in a single row of chairs a few feet back from the opening of the 'U'. Sonja's agile fingers clickity-clacked on the lettered and numbered buttons attached to the computating machine. After half a minute, she pressed one of the buttons forcefully and leaned back in her chair. A few seconds later, the room reverberated with buzzing and ringing and everyone reached for their vid-phones. At the same time, a large picture frame mounted on the wall lit up. In the center of the lighted frame, a number appeared. The number flickered quicker than the blink of an eye, and a larger number replaced it. At the bottom of the frame a red line came to life. At the right side of the line was a smaller number followed by a percent sign. I looked to Tonya for an explanation of what I was seeing; Tonya gave it to me. "Sonja sent out an emergency alert to every comm unit in the valley. The large numerals on the screen indicate how many citizens are online, monitoring the broadcast. The small number is the percentage of the voting public the large number represents. When a quorum is reached, the red line will turn green and Sonja can proceed," she said. I nodded my understanding. The direct participation of all adult citizens was one of the good things about Paradise Valley. That was exactly how I thought a democracy should work. Sure enough, a minute or so later the big number passed fifteen-thousand, the small numerals passed through seventy-five percent and the red line turned green. As soon as the line turned green, Sonja gave a signal to the woman who had set up the moving picture camera. A red light at the top of the lens came on, and Sonja started talking. "Good evening Citizens, I apologize for intruding on your lives in this manner, but after I explain the reasons why, I think you'll agree it was appropriate. I am Senior Government Administrator Sonja Ferrens, and the gentleman on my right is Senior Administrator Fletcher. As you can probably tell, we are broadcasting from the Pleiad Chambers at the university megaplex. "Three days ago, Chairman Bearclaw, with the support of a split Pleiad, invoked a state of emergency. He stated then that our safety and continued survival was threatened by outlanders and the man we brought back from the past. While what the Pleiad did was unprecedented, and Bearclaw's stated reasons dubious, they acted within the scope of our constitution. We administrators had no choice but to allow it. "Since then, we have been under some sort of quasi-martial law, and under the cover of his emergency powers, Chairman Bearclaw and his supporters have had a number of people secretly arrested or detained. When Administrator Fletcher protested the Pleiad's actions, he was also arrested. Because I was responsible for bringing Brock here from the past, I was in hiding until tonight to avoid being arrested, also. "One of the chairman's fears became reality tonight when Mister Brock was captured and brought before the newly constituted Pleiad. Brock smuggled an antique weapon into that meeting and took the Pleiad and a few other of the chairman's supporters captive. He did that not to cause problems for us citizens; he simply wanted to return to his own time. "After taking his prisoners, Brock called one of the staff doctors for assistance. That doctor alerted me and I snuck into the building and made my way up to these chambers." Sonja paused and motion to the man operating the second camera that was set up by the doors. When the camera came on, Sonja's picture on the big frame shifted to on side and a view of the whole room appeared next to her. Sonja then identified everyone in the room and explained what had happened to Mendez and Greer. Then she resumed her narrative. "While I was in hiding, I received some disturbing information that puts Chairman Bearclaw's actions in an entirely different light. So Brock's intervention was good news to me. I spent the last day and a half verifying that information, and I can prove everything I say. What I discovered is that Bearclaw is the leader of a cabal of men in positions of power, who worked for ten years to gain control of our government." As soon as those words were out of Sonja's mouth, Bearclaw leaped to his feet with a shout. His face was twisted into a mask of fury as he took a step towards the 'U' shaped table. I drew my pistol, but before I could do anything, Tonya jolted him with a low powered blast from her stunner. Bearclaw froze in mid-stride and slumped back into his seat. Sonja nodded her thanks to Tonya and continued. "The goal of these men was to insure there was always a majority of like-minded males on the council and in the Pleiad. They achieved this by secretly altering the computer program that randomly picks people to fill council vacancies." She held up a tiny black box, then stuck it in a slot on the computator. "The evidence against Bearclaw and his cronies is on this mem-chip I am loading into the main server now. Based on what is on that chip, I am suspending Bearclaw and the Pleiad he had in place tonight, under the provisions of Article Six of our constitution. The four untainted members of the council will run the government and over see the recall voting for the suspended members. By law, each citizen has 24 hours to reach their decision and cast their yea or nay vote on recalling the tainted council members and Chairman Bearclaw. The civil service commission is responsible for making sure the selection program is fixed and new councilors are appointed. Any criminal proceeding against Bearclaw and his co-conspirators is up to the courts." Sonja informed the citizenry that tomorrow would be business as usual and bid them goodnight. When she was sure the cameras were turned off, she slouched back into her chair. The strain of arresting the highest levels of her society's government weighed heavily on her shoulders. She had performed her duty, but the whole process was distasteful to her. Sonja seemed to think that not unearthing Bearclaw's nefarious plotting sooner reflected poorly on her. That was hogwash of course, but these Valley dwellers were a prideful bunch. I thought that disposing of Bearclaw and Mendez removed the biggest obstacles to me returning to my own time. Given the fact that I helped it happen, I figured now was as a good a time as any to ask for a favor. I interrupted Sonja as she was discussing something with Mister Fletcher. "I am ready to go home and get out of your hair, Sonja. When do you think you can send me back?" I asked. She turned to look at me, her expression unreadable. "You've done us a great service, Jeremiah, and we'd like you to stay for a while. However, if you are set on leaving, we can probably arrange for that to happen in four or five days." I nodded my head to show I understood and reiterated my desire to leave. "Thanks for the offer Sonja, but I am going to have to pass on it. I would like to leave as soon as you can arrange it." ------- I joined Tonya and Agent Habib in escorting Bearclaw down to the medical floor, Helena walked along with us. I felt some satisfaction when Bearclaw was locked into Quarantine Suite Two, the same one I had been held in when I arrived. At the same time, Coleen and a couple of medtechs wheeled Mendez down to a mediscan unit. Sonja had restored power to that part of the medical complex as one of her first actions. I was of the opinion that Mendez should wait until all the people that had been denied treatment the last few days had access to the mediscan, but Coleen nixed that idea. Tonya appeared to have her prisoners well in hand, so Helena and I headed toward the exit. Helena called Sarah so she could meet us at the front entrance. I was more than happy to be leaving because, to me, this monstrosity of a building represented all that was wrong with the future. Sarah was waiting at the front doors. She flung herself into my arms as soon as I walked out and kissed me fiercely. "I was worried to death about you, Jeremiah," she said between kisses. I had to smile when she said that, because she was picking up my manner of speech. Of all the women I had met here in the future, I was most comfortable with Sarah. Unlike the other women here, my relationship with Sarah was not complicated by politics and intrigues. Lucy was there at the doors also. She had a kiss and hug for me as well as a request. "Liz would like to see you before you leave, Jeb." I did not even ask how Queen Elizabeth knew I was going home. The idea of spending my last night in New London instead of here in the valley appealed to me, so I agreed with a caveat. "I would like that, Lucy, but it will have to wait until tomorrow. I am not up to traveling tonight and I want to spend some time with Helena." Sarah and Lucy both agreed that trying to return to New London tonight was a bad idea, they were both tired from our long day. So soon enough, Helena and I were walking hand-in-hand to her apartment. I had reservation about my ability to make the night pleasurable for Helena because of my tiring last twenty-four hours. Helena quickly showed me I was worried for naught. Helena was a skilled, and as I mentioned before, passionate lover. For the first time with one of these future women, she was the teacher and I was the, oh so willing, student. Helena even introduced me to the pleasures of the Sodomites, something I had never thought I would enjoy. It was after one in the morning when she finally showed me some mercy. As I lay on my back gasping for breath, she hopped out of bed seemingly fresh as a daisy and fetched us both a chilled glass of water. As we sat propped up against the headboard, I asked Helena a question that was weighing on my mind. "Once I leave here, will I be able to return?" I asked. Helena smiled and nodded her head. "Sure you will, as long as the portals stay synchronized. Since I returned from your time, I've developed a way to initiate the transfer from the remote portal, so the return doesn't have to be on a set schedule. We can even send messages and material back and forth. I've also found a way to tweak the synchronizers so that when someone from here is back in the past, time will move normally here. Time is easier to manipulate when you can account for travelers being somewhere in the stream of time that has already happened." ------- We departed in the portable mediscan unit the next morning. Tonya had unfinished business in Paradise Valley, so Lucy was driving. Sarah and I were the only passengers and this time I did not have to hide. I had much to think about as we rode along the smooth black roadway. The women left me to my thoughts, disturbing me only once to tell me Bearclaw and his henchmen had been voted out of office by a five to one margin. The return trip to New London was smooth sailing and we pulled into the alley behind Liz's residence shortly after eleven. When we pulled up, Carol, Tonya's mother, came out of the house to greet us. I was seriously enamored with the senior Miss Lawson, so I was most pleased to see her. Carol must have felt the same way, because she gave me one of her patented knee-weakening kisses before she led us into the house. Lucy and Sarah went up stairs to refresh themselves and I headed towards the kitchen to see if there might be any food going to waste. Fifteen minutes later, I was sitting at the kitchen table eating left over stew with Liz's mother and Carol fussing over me. It is funny how my disposition improves when I am shoveling good vittles down my gullet. I looked up from my plate and leapt to my feet when Queen Elizabeth slipped into the room. I held the chair for her when she sat down next to me. She thanked me and got right down to business. "After the way you've been treated here, I can't blame you for wanting to go home, Jeremiah. But I hope you understand that the worst days are over now that Bearclaw is out of power. I won't try to stop you from going home, but I really want you to return here in a few weeks. I need you to lead an expedition into the badlands to survey sites that we can expand into." Then Liz looked up at me from under her eyelashes and blushed pink. "And we need you here to make babies and pass along your extraordinary genetic material." I fell back in my chair and my breath huffed out of me. "First you geld your own men, then you want me here to stud me out. I will not be a party to that. I will not knowingly impregnate a woman unless I care deeply for her and I will help raise any children I sire," I said heatedly. Liz's blue eyes opened wide then she snorted a laugh and took my hand in hers. "Calm down Jeremiah, I wasn't suggesting you bed women anonymously just to make them pregnant. We have a way of achieving that without physical intimacy; all we need is your sperm. I have to say though, that you are going to make a lot of women unhappy by insisting on that, including Lucy and I." Before I could say anything else, Carol chimed in. "You can include my daughter in that number and probably all three of the women who brought you here. Honey, you have to understand that in our society, everyone helps raise a child. Given our low birth rate, a baby is a blessing for everyone, not just the mother." By then, Sarah and Lucy came into the kitchen and joined the conversation. With all four women working on me, I finally saw the light and agreed to give it a try. I also agreed to return to this time in a couple of weeks. I even admitted that I was going to miss all of them. "Not all of us, Muleskinner," Carol said. "Because Sarah and I are going with you to keep you out of mischief." ------- Chapter 27 I do not know why Carol Lawson somehow decided that her destiny was intertwined with mine, but I did not dispute her belief. Truth be told, I had a serious case of unrequited love for the woman. The only thing that had prevented me from acting on that desire was consideration of Tonya's feelings. Carol's chronological age was forty-eight, but thanks to the rejuvimatrix, her physical age was more like twenty-eight. Carol was a tall and robust woman, just like her daughter, and she carried herself with the same natural grace. She had auburn hair and smoky grey eyes; she was attractive, but no raving beauty. She was more feminine in her demeanor than the normal woman of these times, opting for dresses instead of the usual trousers and tunics. She was a fine looking woman, but I was equally attracted to her sparkling personality. Carol had an infectious laugh, a wicked sense of humor and a flirtatious nature. She made me feel as if I was the manliest man of all time. Carol's personality also complimented mine, in that we were both calm and easy-going. In no time at all, it was as if we had been friends for years. Carol and Sarah got along famously also, and the three of us spent the rest of the day talking, laughing and making plans for our trip back to my time. When it was time for bed, Sarah insisted that I spend the night alone with Carol. "There will be plenty of time for the three of us," Sarah stated, "and make no mistake about it, after tonight, we'll share a bed." The compatibility Carol and I shared spilled over into the bedroom. And from the first, there was no awkwardness between us. From the minute she stepped out of the bathroom in a long shimmering nightgown, until we fell into a sated sleep, the night was magical. Carol, for all her years, was not a skillful lover. But what she lacked in skill, she made up for in enthusiasm. I awoke the following morning with her nestled in my arms. I tried to slip quietly out of bed, but she was already awake. She sighed contentedly and pulled me closer to her. "Don't go," she said huskily as she pulled my head down to hers. I started to get antsy about eleven that morning, because sitting around doing nothing was against my nature. Right after lunch, Sarah and Carol had enough of my pacing around and dragged me up to the bedroom to give me something to occupy my time. It worked and the three of us were even better together than any two of us. I found that hard to believe, but it was sure true. We were decadently lounging around on the bed, naked as the day we were born, when Sarah's vid-phone chimed. The caller was Helena, with the good news that I could go back home the day after next. Helena also told us that Sonja needed to see me first, and could I come back a day early. I quickly agreed. My women jumped up and dressed then, but left me wallowing in bed. Take a nap they said. Take a nap I did. I woke up at a few minutes after four in the afternoon. I dressed and moseyed down to the kitchen. It was too early for supper, but Mary Smith gave me a glass of lemonade and told me Liz wanted to see me in her office. Most of the ground floor of Liz's residence was given over to the function of the country of New England. The dining room and kitchen only occupied about a fourth of it. Still, when compared to the Capital Building and White House in my former time, it wasn't much. Liz had a nice sized corner office at the opposite side of the building from the kitchen. A set of free standing stairs on the outside wall of her office led up to her bedroom on the second floor. Beside the office was a flag draped conference room dominated by a granite topped table and twelve padded armchairs. Next to the conference room was the communications center, a large room filled with blinking picture screens and whirring computational machines. The opposite side of the central hall held offices for Liz's staff. A secretary announced my presence and led me into Liz's office. Liz came around her desk and gave me a hug, then pointed to a satchel resting on a side table. "That's for you, Jeremiah." I opened the satchel and peeked inside. Shining back at me was a jumble of poorly-formed, one pound gold ingots. "This is a fortune," I blurted. Liz shrugged her shoulders. "In your time it was, but to us it is a fairly common metal with little practical use. It's a small token of our appreciation for all you've done for us. By eliminating the Juicers and neutralizing Bearclaw, you advanced our cause by many years. With Bearclaw out of the way and a legitimate Pleiad seated, I see the Valley joining the alliance we already have in place with Casadega. When that's done, we can truly look outwards. There are thousands of square miles of wilderness to explore and survey for artifacts and settlements. You are going to lead those explorations. The gold can buy you luxury and comfort in your own century to make up for the privations you experience here." ------- The following morning, we boarded a vehicle Carol called a 'bus' for our trip to Paradise Valley. The bus was not unlike a railroad passenger coach, only it was self-propelled. The bus had about a dozen other people on it. Lucy was one of those people. She was on her way to meet with Sonja to expedite better relations between the valley and New England. The four of us sat on a pair of padded benches that faced each other. The women peppered me about where I lived and the people of my times. Lucy also excitedly told us of the rapidly improving relations happening between the outlanders and the valley dwellers. The trip to the valley was my third one, and it was the most pleasant by far. The coach was very comfortable, and on this trip I was neither wounded nor a hunted man. The only uncomfortable moments of the trip were when Lucy asked me to sit in another seat with her for a private conversation. We moved to an empty section of the bus and Lucy came straight to the point. "Jeb, I want a baby and I want it to be yours. I can wait to be artificially inseminated when we get around to that, but I'd rather do it the natural way." Lucy was never one to beat around the bush! I looked at her for a minute, considering how I was going to answer her. See, the anonymous aspect of providing my essence for Liz's plan was the main reason I signed on to it. If I did not know the women whose eggs my sperm fertilized, I would not feel responsible for the children that resulted. If I had a child with Lucy the natural way, I would obviously know. And I had one other reason having to do with who she was. Lucy saw my hesitation and took it the wrong way. Her hopeful look clouded over until it changed to sadness tinged with anger. "Don't tell me that my skin color is an issue," she hissed. I held up my hand to stop her from saying anything further. "Listen Lucy, your skin color doesn't make the slightest difference to me. I've never been with a woman of color, but that is simply because of the lack of opportunity. One of my problems with the idea is being a part of the child's life. You already know how I feel about that from the other night. The other reason has to do with you being altered, and if you plan to alter your child the same way." Relief washed over her face and she gave me a sweet smile. "I'd want my child to know who their father was and I'd expect that father to take an interest in the child's life. And except for medical necessities, I want our child to be unaltered also. I think we'd make a beautiful baby, Jeb." That being the case, I happily agreed. Lucy was all smiles when we returned to our original seats. Sarah and Carol looked at her expectantly when she sat down. Lucy nodded her head and the three women hugged. "I told you he'd do it," Carol stated, matter-of-factly. "We are going to have a bunch of crazy little muleskinners running around here before you know it." ------- The women and I separated as soon as we arrived at the university megaplex. I went to visit Sonja and they head towards Sarah's apartment. I caught up with Sonja at her office off the Pleiad's Chambers. My meeting with Sonja went much as my meeting with Queen Elizabeth. As soon as she gave me a kiss and a hug, she pressed a satchel full of gold ingots into my hands. There had to be at least thirty pounds of gold in the bag. I again protested the gift but Sonja insisted that it was payment for services authorized by the new Pleiad. Once again I reluctantly accepted the gold, then Sonja and I sat and talked for a few minutes. Sonja said she was sad that she wasn't going back in time with me but she was need here now more than ever what with a new Pleiad seated. I told her I would miss her but that I understood all about duty coming first. We shared a sweet kiss when I left and I promised her I would visit here every time I was in the valley. "You better," she said with a grin, "because you owe me some loving." I met with Helena later that afternoon. Sarah and Carol did not go with me. They were busy gathering up what they wanted to take with them for our return to my time. With Mendez out of the picture, Helena was now the head of the time travel project, and she had a completely different idea of how to use the machine. Instead of fruitlessly trying to change the past, Helena was going to pluck things from it that were unavailable here in the future. A committee of scientist had already been formed, and was working on a list of those items. The list of ideas included everything from raw materials to plants and animals that were extinct here in the twenty-sixth century. Since the link with my time was already established and tested, they would use it at first. I was to be their agent in obtaining what they wanted. I liked the idea, because it required hauling freight and traveling. We also discussed moving the time portal closer to Cheyenne so I wouldn't have to travel two days to reach it. To that end, Helena had some incredibly detailed maps of Cheyenne County displayed on one of the large picture viewers. It took me a minute to find where I figured my ranch was located, and I pointed it out on the map. Helena nodded and touched the map where I indicated. Instantly the map changed to show a closer view of the area. As the view changed, white writing appeared on the map in several different locations. Helena touched the one nearest my ranch. The view changed again, this time it was of the interior of a cavern. Crude red and black drawings of buffalo and deer adorned the cave walls. Helena grinned and pointed to the cave. "We are in luck; this is a well documented Native American spirit cave. Let me see how precisely its location is listed in the database." Helena tapped the screen twice and it resolved into a photograph of an arched cave entrance with a carved wooden sign in front of it. Helena gave a small gasp when she read the sign, while I simply stared at it speechless. It said: HELENA MOUNTAIN SPIRIT CAVE Discovered and named by the legendary Frontiersman Jeremiah Brock April 1, 1880 Before I could think of anything to say, Helena threw herself into my arms and kissed me. Then she let me go and turned back to the picture. "I guess that answers the question of it being useable," she gushed, "and you named it after me!" ------- Helena and her crew set new coordinates on the time traveling machine. They also sent back a device that took moving picture so that they could make certain the location was plotted correctly and the cave was unoccupied. The women's trip back to the eighteen hundreds was delayed for a couple of days, because I had to return by myself first. The reason for that had to do with transportation and the passage of time back in the past. See, I had only been away from home one day as my family had measured it, so it would strain belief if I was to show up on foot with two new wives only a couple of days after I supposedly departed for California. We solved the problems by me returning to the original cavern by myself. The horses I rode to the cave were still standing right outside it when I walked out. To them, it was if I walked into the cave and walked right back out. I let the horses rest up all day and overnight. The following morning, I saddled the horses, mounted up and sauntered back to the ranch. Ma was surprised to see me back so soon, but she accepted my explanation for restarting my trip. Between visiting with everyone over the next two days, I secretly cached a wagon, a team of mules and a horse near the Indian cave. I left the animals hobbled so they could graze, but couldn't run away. On my fourth morning back, I once again rode away from my house. I told Mama I changed my mind about California and was instead headed for Denver. While I was back in the past, Helena told the other women in my life about the sign in front of the cave. That information sent them scurrying to find out if I had named anything after them, and to see what historical information was recorded about 'the legendary Frontiersman' Jeremiah Brock. I was very embarrassed by the entire thing and would not let the women tell me what they discovered. I spent my second night back in the valley with Lucy. She said there was only a slight chance of her becoming pregnant from our liaison, but she wanted to try anyway. Except for her dusky skin, there was no difference in making love to her from any other woman with whom I had relations. She was eager and responsive though, and that made the experience very enjoyable for both of us. Lucy and I liked each other well enough, but there was nothing between us but friendship. One day later, Sonja, Lucy and Coleen were standing with Helena behind the counter that housed the time machine's controls. I gave them a jaunty wave as Helena press down on the activator button and sent us tumbling back to the nineteenth century. Sarah and Carol were wearing frocks copied from historical patterns, and I was in my best suit when we made the trip through time. So we did not look a bit out of place when we pulled into Boulder, Colorado three days later. We went to Boulder instead of Cheyenne, so that my women could outfit themselves in genuine clothes and learn the manners of these times before we went back to where I called home. I picked Boulder because I had friends there. We stayed at the home of a pair of those friends; we stayed at Madame Devereaux's Gentlemen's Emporium with Camille and Sheriff Bob Randolph. I explained to Camille and Bob that my new 'friends' were from an isolated settlement up in Canada, where folks had different customs. Then I asked Camille if she could teach the women how proper American ladies comported themselves. Camille accepted the challenge, but could not resist teasing me. "I would be delighted to help you, Cheri," she said. Then she turned to Carol and Sarah with a wink. "Two beautiful women, oo-la-la, you must be much a man young Jeremiah." I think Camille expected to make us all blush, but I was the only one to turn red. Sarah just smiled and nodded her head vigorously, but Carol made some comment in French. Camille's eyes lit up and before I could say spit, the three women were parlez-vousing like long lost relatives. The population of Paradise Valley was required to study both French and Spanish while in school so that the languages would not be lost. We stayed in Boulder for a couple of weeks while Sarah and Carol learned what they needed to know to blend in to our society. Camille used her business as her classroom, and after four days of observing, she had Sarah and Carol dressed up and entertaining gentlemen callers. Even though there was no impropriety involved, my women quite enjoyed the opportunity to test their feminine wiles on the men who picked them as companions for the evening. The flirting and obvious appreciation from fully-functioning, confident men insured my ladies were in an amorous mood when they returned to our room. Carol quickly became a favorite among the older gents because of her flirtatious charm and beguiling wit. The men actually bid on who had the pleasure of Carol's company for an evening, so Camille was sad, for both personal and financial reasons, when we left town. I sold the wagon and mules for a good profit to a miner in Boulder, so we arrived back in Cheyenne by stagecoach on July 2, 1868. By then the women had each accumulated a steamer trunk packed chock full of new clothes and accessories. I was amazed at how easily they adapted to life in these times. We spent a night in the best hotel in town, then rented a chauffeured Cabriolet to take us out to my ranch. I will admit to some nervousness about introducing Sarah and Carol to my family. I think Sarah was too. Carol, however, was her usual unflappable self. Mama did not bat an eyelash when I introduced the women to her as my future wives; instead, she welcomed them with open arms. She did not even enquire as to how we came about being together so soon after I left for Denver. Mama, Calvin (the addle brained former confederate soldier we had hired back in Georgia), my future wives and I were the only people living on our original homestead now. I was not surprised that Mama's adopted daughter, Rachael, had gone back east. I was sad that she was gone and unhappy because it was with Glenville Dodge. Although Dodge treated Rachael very well, I still did not trust the man any further than I could throw him. JC Colbert, my long time best friend, finally owned the cattle ranch he had always wanted. His new spread was about ten miles east of the little valley. He bought the thirty-three hundred acre parcel from the Union Pacific Railroad for pennies an acre, with the caveat that the railroad owned the mineral rights and could claim a right of way through it. JC had a big house being built on the property for Anna, her daughters and their infant son. My other sister-in-law, Florence McDougal, and her husband Sean, had already moved into a house they built in town. They took my little buddy Alice with them. The McDougals owned and operated the largest general store west of St Louis, so they needed to live closer to it. Besides, Sean was a city boy and he had never taken to life on the ranch. We spent a couple of days settling in to my house, then we rode up to the cave and transported ourselves to Paradise Valley. Our test of the new procedures for initiating time travel from the past to the future worked perfectly. Now it was time to start using the past to make the future brighter for the struggling denizens of the twenty-sixth century... ------- Epilogue The story I just related is how I came to be who I am today: a man whose life is spent bestride two different points of history, in effect, two different worlds. One world, my original one, was rich in resources and poor in knowledge. The other had six hundred years of additional knowledge, but had consumed all the resources, including most of the human race. The two worlds were miles apart in terms of how people lived, yet the problems facing both were surprisingly similar. I never dwelled on the ungodly fate of the millions upon millions of people who died as a result of mankind's stupidity, to do so was to invite madness. I also knew it was fruitless to try to change history that was destined to happen anyway. Instead, I committed myself to make the present and the immediate future a better one in both places and times. I enjoyed the time I spent in each place, although I have to say that I felt I was accomplishing more in the future. I also felt a greater sense of urgency when it came to helping out in the twenty-sixth century. That was because I knew from reading the future's history books that a golden era was in front of the later part of the nineteenth century. There was no such guarantee for the twenty-sixth. And finally, there was a giant benefit in all this for me personally, in that I was able to satisfy my wanderlust in two different places, in two different times. It soon became second nature to me to switch roles when I switched eras. I was as comfortable as an explorer and advisor to a queen in the future, as I was as a muleskinner and rancher in the past. I even became comfortable with the technical jargon the future employed. It took a few trips back and forth to establish a routine that worked for everyone, but by the third trip, we had a system with which everyone (but most especially me) could live. The system wasn't rigidly structured, because I hated regimentation, but it never involved being in the past more than a month. Since time waited for me in the past, but moved implacably forward in the future, my stays in the future were not limited in that manner. Some times I stayed as little as two weeks, sometimes as long as three months. Many of my friends in the future asked me why I wanted to spend any more time than absolutely necessary in the eighteen hundreds. My answer was simple enough, the time I was from made me what I was; my roots were there and it was my refuge from all the turmoil that the future held. ------- The scientists in Paradise Valley opened a second channel in time back to the early years of the twenty-first century. Through that link, they brought forward technology and finished materials. Nothing living, not even a microbe, was allowed into the valley from that era, because by that time, the Earth was well on its way to being toxic. The team in the twenty-first century set themselves up as a small business in a building outside of Atlanta, Georgia. They used knowledge as their coin, by patenting a quick-charging, light weight, high efficiency storage battery not originally invented until 2018. The future men negotiated a contract with Ford Motor Company to manufacture the battery. In exchange, Ford had first choice of the batteries they made. With plenty of money in the bank, a steady stream of materials and completed items were sent forward to the future. The limiting factor of how much of what could be sent through time was the capacity of the time machine. It could only move about two thousand pounds at once, and the machine could only cycle once in each direction every twenty-four hours. My curiosity made me visit the twenty first century site. I was astounded with what I saw, as the near future was much more impressive than the distant. I had been shown videos of airplanes of this era, but to actually see an airplanes knifing through the sky was awe inspiring. I was also awed by the endless columns of shiny autos that sped at breakneck speed along black ribbon-like roadways. I saw buildings, tall as mountains and made of glass. And I saw people ... teeming masses of men, women and children in all shapes and sizes and colors. I was impressed by what I saw, yet I felt no envy for these unfriendly people as they rushed about their business. They appeared to be as uncaring and single minded as soldier ants. Even the very air they breathed was foul and fetid. It burned my nostrils and lay thick and metallic on my tongue. One look around satisfied my curiosity and made me thankful for what I had ... and what I did not have to endure. It would give me something worse to think about the next time I spent four days looking at the north side of a south bound mule. The medicos from the future were very interested in the plants and animals we took forward. According to them, the genes of everything, including Homo sapiens, were stronger, more resistant to disease and more responsive to their medicines. One of the things we were required to bring to Paradise Valley was the viable sperm of a cross section of ethnically diverse males. The collection of that sperm was accomplished by trickery involving Carol, Sarah, drugged liquor and hypnotic suggestion. Here is how that worked. Carol, pretending to be a fallen dove, would lure a likely candidate to her room, where she gave him a drink of drugged whiskey. In fewer than five minutes, the subject would be unconscious. Sarah would enter the room and medically withdraw the man's essence with a special syringe. Once she had her sample, Sarah gave the man an injection of some sort of drug that made him susceptible to hypnotic suggestion. Carol then spun a story of wild and wanton debauchery into the man's head and left him to believe he was such a superb lover, she gifted him the five gold double eagles he found when he woke up. I was always close by when the samples were collected, in case anything went awry. Thankfully, that never happened. Carol loved the challenge of luring the men to her room, and to her credit, very few ever turned her down. We conducted most of the collecting activities around Fort Collins, because of the large number of prime males serving there in the cavalry. We left many young horse soldiers with a happy false memory and a hundred extra dollars. The initial problem with the sperm was at the other end, because Coleen and the other doctors at the university wanted to enhance the genetic composition of the sperm, which would have the affect of altering the children the sperm conceived. I didn't mind the DNA being manipulated to eliminate birth defects and hereditary problems, but I stood firm against any other tinkering. Trying to play God was partially to blame for the conditions the future folks suffered, and I was determined that the practice stop. In the end, Liz Smith backed me up on that. The valley dwellers abolished the birth permit lottery when joining the New England coalition made new resources available to support a larger population. Plus, genetically diverse and viable sperm was now available for the asking. There was a veritable explosion of births, both in and out of the valley, as thousands of women became pregnant. For the first time in decades, the population of the valley grew. ------- I led expeditions out into the badlands to support the planned future growth. Our objectives were to find water and arable land, locate and assess old settlements and land fills, recover any usable artifacts, and incorporate individuals or settlements we found into New England. Because of the way they were bred and conditioned, I had very few men volunteer for my first expedition. However, I had more women volunteer than I could take. It took considerable effort from me, and some gentle prodding from my wives, to overcome my cultural bias against using women for that sort of thing. Once I took off my nineteenth century blinders, I discovered that my new charges were as smart and motivated as any soldier with whom I had ever served. I took twenty-four people on the first trip, and we traveled by horse and mule. I had twenty mounted scouts and four teamsters aboard two mule drawn wagons. The wagons did the double duty of carrying provisions for our trip and hauling important or interesting things back home. I started small because I was working out procedures and training my scouts as we went. We explored and remapped a twenty mile square (four hundred square miles) section on the first ten day trip. We used old, pre-catastrophe maps as a starting point. We plotted the limits of the area to be explored on the maps and first visited any mapped old population centers. After that we simply fanned out in teams and poked around. We took copious notes and video taped or photographed anything of interest. When we returned to New London, I sat down with my troops so we could critique the mission. I floated the idea of us organizing along the lines of a military unit. The twenty-two women and two men quickly agreed, so I took the idea to Queen Elizabeth for her approval. She loved the idea and the New England Scout Battalion was born. I designated the unit a battalion in case we needed to expand later. For the immediate future though, I planned on a unit with about one hundred people divided into four companies of twenty-five. The companies would have four teams with five scouts each, a company commander and four teamsters who along with the commander could make a fifth scout team or act as the company headquarters. I was the battalion commander, Carol was my executive officer and Sarah was the battalion surgeon. Since I was a poor organizer, I outlined my plan and got out of the way so Carol and the others could make it work. Within a week, they had recruited the troops we would need, organized the companies and teams, and selected company commanders and team leaders. In their spare time, and without my knowledge, they designed a uniform for themselves. My first batch of volunteers was selected because they had a yen to do something different. That was the main reason so few men joined. The new men had the boldness bred out of them. For the second group of volunteers, we wanted more scientific professionals: chemists, biologists, and that ilk. So some men saw the expedition as a means of doing actual field research and joined us. I ended up with sixteen men and eighty-eight women. About two thirds of them were from Paradise Valley. All of the males were altered, of course, and so were about three quarters of the females. I was slightly disappointed that Tonya was not among the volunteers, but she was head of the valley's security forces now, and could not join us. Her big Arabian friend Mona Habib did volunteer though, and at Carols urging, I made her my deputy commander. I was soon to find out that Carol had a purpose past Mona's leadership skills for wanting her with us. Mona was a quiet and introspective person, but she was a skilled leader with excellent judgment. She was also mighty attractive to me. She had beautiful almond shaped eyes, a flawless dusky complexion and a most pleasing personality. It did not bother me that she was six feet tall and weighed a muscular two hundred pounds. It did not take long for us to develop feelings for each other, which is exactly what Carol and Sarah wanted. When I asked Carol why she and Sarah wanted me to have a third wife, her answer shocked me. "We don't want you to have three wives, Honey; we want you to have four. That's how many you had according to the history books," she said. She started to elaborate, but I held my hand up to silence her. The mere mention of me being in history books made me exceedingly uncomfortable. Besides, I did not want to know how my future happened; I wanted it to be a surprise as I lived it. Queen Elizabeth did the honors of making my marriage to Mona official, just as she had for Sarah and Carol and me. ------- They sprung the uniforms on me at the end of our second week back from the badlands. I had been in a planning meeting with the committee of scientists who researched and selected the areas for us to scout. We were pouring over a map of our next target area when someone came into the room and said I was needed outside. When I exited the building, I found my command drawn up in mounted parade ground formation, dressed in uniforms that were modern and practical copies of the one I wore when I served with General Lee. They wore grey denim trousers with red stripes down the legs and matching grey tunics with red piping. The tunics were long in length, had numerous pockets and were cinched with a black web belt around the waist. A stunner in a holster and a sheathed hunting knife hung from the belts. For head gear, they wore small crowned, grey hats with a medium sized brim. I was struck speechless. I was struck speechless again later that night when Carol, Sarah and Mona modeled the tunic without the trousers. Believe me when I tell you; the tunic was not as long as it appeared when worn with pants, especially for women as tall as Carol and Mona. And without the formidable corset like garments they wore to support their breasts, the garments were worthy of a Caliph's Harem. "We designed this for relaxing around camp in the evenings; do you like it?" Carol asked innocently. I nodded my head enthusiastically. What was there not to like? We trained for another week, then moved into the badlands. For this expedition, our area of interest was a forty mile square, located over one hundred miles southeast of New London. Our departure for our first real mission was a big event throughout New England, Paradise Valley and Casadega. A good sized crowd saw us off in New London and many more people watched us on camera. We were the first major foray into the wilderness ever attempted, and already volunteer settlers were lining up in Casadega and the Valley to take advantage of the opportunity for a new start. We made an impressive sight as we file out of town in a column of two, the White Star flag of New England whipping in the breeze. Our trip was a success well beyond our expectations, as the city that was the focus of our trip turned out to be remarkably intact. Our scientists attributed that to a nuclear device that eradicated anything living but caused only minor physical damage. The residual radiation from the nuclear bomb had dissipated to a level easily tolerated by the future men. The town was a treasure trove of desirable artifacts and materials for recycling. And best of all, it was habitable. After our mission, we spent two days going over lessons learned, then I dismissed most of the troops back to their regular lives and jobs. The only full time members of the Scout Battalion were ten women, all experienced ranch hands, who tended the live stock and equipment. Part of the bounty from our trip was a good sized herd of wild horses that the ranch hands rounded up and brought back with us. The new breeding stock was most welcomed by the ranchers around New London and in the valley. The new horses also went a longs ways towards replacing the mounts we had borrowed from them. Eight weeks after we left, we traveled back to my time. Mona was a part of us now, so she went too. Although Carol and Sarah could teach Mona most everything she needed to know, they insisted that we go back to Boulder so Mona could receive some practical experience. "Besides," Carol said with a sly little smile, "Sarah and I could use the practice after being gone so long." I did not raise a ruckus about going to Camille's. How could I when I was the beneficiary of their training. See, Carol, Sarah and now Mona's only exposure on how they should treat me came from what they learned from Camille. And Camille's personal belief and her livelihood focused on spoiling a man rotten. Camille taught my wives how to be charming and doting companions in public ... and wanton sex fiends in private. We spent ten days in Boulder, two days on the road and two days relaxing at the ranch before we had to go out and collect some specimens for the future's scientists. Strangely enough, their list included a honey bee hive and a hundred pounds of seed corn. When we were back in New London, Sarah, Lucy and Liz Smith all sprang the news on me that I was going to be a Daddy. Apparently, all three of them caught the same week! ------- And so time passed for me and it passed quickly, despite living twice as much of it as everyone else. My mother died in 1873. She died not long after Curtis, the brain damaged soldier with the nightingale voice, passed away. I guess she figure that without Curtis to care for, she was free to join her Savior in Heaven. I found some solace in the fact that I had been able to spend more time with her since I started making trips to the future. I was also thankful she saw me settled down and had a chance to play with a few of her grandchildren. By the time Mama died, Sarah had given me a boy and a girl and Mona blessed us with a son. Carol was physically young enough for children, but she said she was not ready yet and did not know if she would ever be. It was a pity that Mama never met any of her grandbabies up future-time, although I'm not sure how she would have handled how many of them there were. After Mama passed, we stopped using the spirit cave as our time station. We replaced it with a large barn with a secret basement not two hundred feet from the new house we built. The new house was a marvel, in that it incorporated many of the latest conveniences being used back east, but unheard of out here on the frontier. We even had an indoor privy and running water. All that and not one bit of technology came from the future. Over the years, we became close friends with our mostly Mormon neighbors. I liked the Mormonites because they were good honest people. And of course, since most Mormon families had more than one wife, we had something in common. Being a woman in the 1870s kept Sarah from hanging out a doctor's shingle, but she soon gained a reputation as a skilled midwife. Over a span of years, Sarah's medical knowledge slowly won her the confidence of everyone in our section of northwest Cheyenne County. I also stayed close to my relatives and friends from before I went forward. The only conflict I really had was with my conscience, as everyone around me aged two or three time faster than my wives and I. Or they died of diseases for which cures were waiting in the future. But determining who lived in the past based on them being my kit or kin was playing God, just as the people in the future had tried to do. If it was wrong up there, it was wrong back here. We never took anyone from my time forward, but we sure brought a lot of visitors back with us. Even Queen Elizabeth came to visit us for a couple of weeks. I did not even bat an eyelash when Carol informed me that we were taking Liz to Boulder for 'cultural indoctrination'. I was used to it by now because every woman who visited us asked to go there. My women liked to have a good time just as much as I did. And being from the future, they were not keen on the idea that they weren't allowed in dance halls or saloons because they didn't work there. Their solution to that was for us to buy a dancehall of our own. Carol supervised the remodeling of the place and soon enough, the 'Taste of Paradise' was up and dancing. I didn't visit the dancehall when it opened, because Mona and I were hauling a load of freight to the South Pass mines. So the operation was in full swing when I walked in that first time. The first thing I noticed was how much nicer the Paradise was than the other joints on Front Street. The second thing was that the floosies swishing around the dance floor were women from the future. They were not just any women though; they were all members of the Scout Battalion. That is when I figured out the dancehall was Carol's clever solution to speeding up the collection of genetic material and rewarding our troops at the same time. Although I did not need the money, I continued to occasionally haul freight. The truth of the matter is that I loved doing it and the simple life of a muleskinner out on the road added balance to the complicated life I led the rest of the time. Mona was the wife who usually accompanied me on my freight runs. She had become a right fair teamster and could spell me when I needed a break. However, her real talent was as a shotgun rider. Mona had no compulsion against learning to use the weapons of these times, and she became very proficient with them. To go along with that proficiency, she was absolutely fearless. Her coolness under fire saved my hide on two different occasions. Mona Habib was a member of a clan of women that value honor and integrity and Mona had plenty of both. There had been no male Habibs born since the altering of men began. Rightly or wrongly, the clan decided that the family's honor would not allow that desecration to be visited on their male. Mona's and my son Ali was the first male Habib born in four generations. Mona was a true virgin when we wed; she had never been involved sexually with a man or woman. She said she had never been with a man because none of the future males wanted her because of her size. She had never been with a female because the thought did not appeal to her. For never having tried it, Mona took to love making as if she were meant for it. Mona was unadventurous and restrained in her passion when we were home but out on the trail she was a wildcat. No story of me muleskinning would be complete unless I mentioned old Zeke. I seldom hitch a team in which Zeke is not the lead mule. Zeke and I go out riding at least twice a week if we are not hauling freight. Zeke turned twenty in 1876, so he was just hitting his prime as it was not unusual for a mule to live fifty years and work forty-five of them. Zeke was family to me and my wives doted on him. They spoil him rotten, just like they do me. And just like me, Zeke did not complain about it one little bit. ------- In 1875 (or 2532 if you prefer) Helena Medi Thompson became wife number four. It took all those intervening years for her to advance the time project to a point where it did not require her constant attention. She kept tabs on the project when we were in the future, but in my time she devoted herself to her passion for art. Helena was a damned fine artist. Her beautiful paintings of Wyoming landscapes ended up adorning both our state and national capital buildings. In all my jumping around in time, I never lost my attachment to my fiddle. Well, I had a really fine violin by then. It was Italian made and the notes off the strings were each a thing of beauty, even with me doing the bowing. Owning a dancehall gave me a place to play my music with a captive audience, so to speak. Carol had a four piece band that played for the dancers and I sat in with them whenever I had a chance. I was at the dancehall sawing away on my fiddle one night during the summer of 1878, when a young fancy dressed cowboy walked in. He was escorting two women and carrying a guitar slung over his back. I watched him curiously as he walked up to the bar and spoke to Carol. I could not hear what they were saying, but Carol smiled and nodded as she shook hands with each of the women. After the introductions, Carol waved for me to join them. I nodded, finished the reel I was playing with a flourish and sauntered over to the Bar. Carol made the introductions. "Jeremiah, this is Ty McGuinn and these are two of his wives, Connie and Belle. They just moved here from El Paso, Texas; his other wives are resting at the hotel. Mister McGuinn heard about us allowing women guests, so he paid us a visit. He is an entertainer and would like to sing a song or two and do some dancing with his wives." I looked McGuinn over with my ex-lawman eyes as we shook hands. He looked for all the world like some gunslinger with his brace of Colts in a custom tooled holster rig, and he was dressed like a riverboat gambler. He had an honest look about him though, and his grey eyes twinkled mischievously. One of his wives was a strikingly beautiful petite blonde; the other was a very attractive Red Indian. I took McGuinn up to the bandstand and told him to have at it. He had some songs none of us ever heard of, but once he showed us the chords, we were able to back him up. His guitar playing and singing voice were adequate, but his showmanship was outstanding. In no time at all, he had everyone gathered around the stage clapping along. Later that night, Carol said it was a thrill meeting Ty, because some of the songs he wrote were still popular in her time. With that in mind, I learned a few of them the next time I visited Paradise Valley. Ty McGuinn and I became good friends after that night and his wives and mine were as thick as thieves. Ty bought a large spread a few miles north of us, so we often visited back and forth. Ty and I had a few high adventures together, especially during the Johnson County War. You can read about that in a book Ty wrote titled Cheyenne. Or hell, maybe I will write one about it myself... ------- The End ------- Posted: 2008-01-06 Last Modified: 2009-02-21 / 10:35:07 pm ------- http://storiesonline.net/ -------